npwsol - 6:38 pm on Aug 21, 2008 (gmt 0)

BaseVinyl - While I agree in principal, the workings here in the U.S. imply that the mother is the person who would be signing the release form, so no foul here.

Matthew - Public availability is not the question here, it's fair use. We're discussing the video, which: a) is copyrighted itself, b) is a derivative work, c) was released publicly without the intent for profit by the author, d) was ordered to be taken down by Universal after a bot-only review. Google is (possibly) profitting, but they're not responsible for the content being uploaded (as per the DMCA).

Webwork - I think we can both agree that there are definitely limits here. I think we disagreed for the most part because I was referring specifically to the case at hand (and similar cases) where you were referring to the larger problem.

In short, a clarification:
1) Mom and Pop should be able to create and publish whatever they want using whatever materials they have so long as the result is not both an endorsement and a derivative work (based on someone else's work (not their own) without permission, of course)

2) In the context of the above, using Google's YouTube is not an endorsement to me. It's the use of a service. Basically, I'm just saying that neither you nor Google should get in trouble just because you used YouTube to publish and YouTube has advertisements; you are seperate parties. Just clarifying my stance >_>

3) If it ever comes down to marketing / digital media students creating free advertisement and posting it to YouTube to get attention, would you please bury me (with it <_<)? Seriously, I don't necessarily argue against creating it, but publishing it publicly is just stupid; keep that stuff in your portfolio (wherein I think fair use applies anyway).

4) On the consumer created advertising contests you mention: they should be legal, but there should be some ground rules. I.E., videos should be sent to the company, not published publicly. The winning video can be used as an advertisement, but the company should be required (as one would hope) to acquire the necessary privileges to create it. This kind of model obviously throws a stick into the flow of the process (what if you can't get privileges for everything in the winning video?), but we know how I feel about corporations anyhow. Better ideas?

In my experience, people generally know when something's marketing to them; all of the corporate sponsored "viral videos" I've ever heard of have been absolute flops, and, in fact, when they were exposed as corporate marketing efforts they completely backfired. I'm referring to a Sony video for their handheld console, IIRC. I can't speak for all of the population, but I've never personally known someone who didn't hate advertising of all kinds. On a rare occasion, it's useful ("hey, I actually do need to get out of debt..."), but for the most part the people I know regard advertising as consumerist drivel.

We're all a bunch of commies if you hadn't guessed.

Uhh, sorry for not recognizing the context you were speaking in >_>

Edit: Totally agree with the revenue sharing principle. Music companies should be jumping on board, not fighting against YouTube.

Regarding bot take-down notices: as I think this case demonstrates, they get the epic fail. Is it really that hard to just flag a video and then go for a manual review? Seriously? I understand you don't want to pay for the man-hours, but if the bot's wrong, you could get in trouble.