Since we were also long-time fans of other review series like The Angry Video Game Nerd, the Nostalgia Critic and The Cinema Snob, the idea began to float toward doing our own review series, targeting these specific movies.

That show quickly became Garbage Horror.

It was going to be a steep learning curve for us. Neither of us had done any significant video work (no video editing experience at all) and we had no idea what the format and general structure of the show would be like.

But one area I didn’t expect any problems was the area of copyright. However, I quickly learned that I was very, very wrong. The change in medium brought a slew of new copyright challenges and overcoming them, in many ways, helped to define what our show would become and what we could do with it.

With that in mind, here is some of the copyright challenges we faced and how we overcame them. It wasn’t an easy road, but so far it’s been one well worth taking.

Getting the Series Started

When we first started drafting the show format, we knew two things. First, we wanted to do something different and, second, we wanted to respect the copyright of the filmmakers we were reviewing.

The two were related considering that the review shows we enjoy typically follow a long review format that rely on showing clips from the film, describing the whole plot and making fun of the movie the entire time. This has lead to at least one copyright controversy over their reviews.

Seeking to avoid that, or at least reduce the likelihood of it, we decided on a two-part format for the episodes.

1. Parody Intro: The first 1-2 minutes would be a parody intro of a scene from the movie, either one that was ridiculous or one we thought we could “improve” with our zero-budget filmmaking.
2. The Review: The actual review portion would be 10-12 minutes (average) and would be an actual discussion of the film with overlays.

The parody intro would be short and, generally, use no actual footage from the movie (the exception being the “Monster Dog” intro where we used a clip from a song to recreate a music video in the movie). Just our parodying of something from the film with our own work. Though there could be a derivative works issue, considering the remakes are all parody we felt comfortable with our fair use position as long as we were careful.

The review portions, would be spoiler-free and not give away anything that happens aftter the second act. There would be a plot synopsis of the film up to that point and then be a discussion between us about the good and bad of the movie. Clips would be used, though none would be longer than a minute and they would only have sound if it was crucial to the point.

All in all, we felt that the structure of the reviews gave us a much stronger fair use argument than many of the shows we enjoy and, more importantly, would actually encourage people to go out and buy the movies we watched (at least the good ones) by not giving away the ending or anything too central to the plot.

However, as we found out quickly, our copyright troubles were just beginning and the worst was yet to come.

Building the Show

Once we had the basic premise of the show, we had the challenge of building our first episode. However, that turned out to be a greater challenge than expected.

The most immediate problem was obtaining the clips themselves. Though DVD ripping was made legal by the most recent round exemptions passed to the DMCA’s anti-circumvention rules, many of the movies we were watching weren’t available (to us) on DVD.

Many were on Netflix for digital streaming and the law offers no way to legally circumvent that DRM and, even if it did, Netflix’s terms of use expressly forbids it. So, an alternative had to be found.

Fortunately, the screen capture software I use, Snapz Pro X does remarkably well with video recordings. The system doesn’t circumvent DRM, merely captures what’s on screen after Netflix handles the decryption, making the process legal from the DMCA side but also within the bounds of Netflix terms, which only bars this for infringing activities.

However, the system doesn’t work for long clips, especially with sound, as it begins to slow down and, if you’re using sound, audio falls out of sync quickly. Still, for the purpose of short, usually sound-less clips, it works very well. It’s also worth noting that, since OSX Lion, it doesn’t work for capturing video in iTunes as iTunes simply whites out the screen when you try to do so.

The other challenge was music. Though there’s no shortage of good CC-licenseable music available, CCMixter being my favorite site, searching for music is a disorganized mess at times. Though we’ve used a variety of artists over our nine episodes, we ended up just agreeing to first check and see if Pitx has a song we can use.

Pitx, as many of you know, did the theme for the Copyright 2.0 Show and he also does a wide variety of music, ranging from blues to rock to more classical works we’ve used in the show.

With those issues resolved, it was pretty easy to start assembling our episodes. However, on our seventh episode we ran into a copyright problem we honestly did not expect.

Birdemic and The Getty Logo

When preparing to record our seventh episode, which was to be on the ultra-low-budget bird attack/global warming caution piece Birdemic, I noticed something unusual during a scene in the first part of the movie.

The scene had the lead character “Rod” watching a news report about an environmentally-friendly auto race. As the news anchor talked awkwardly over what was clearly stock footage of F1 cars, I noticed something peculiar, the Getty Images logo.

Usually, that’s a sign that the person using the content didn’t pay to license the image/video and simply captured the clips from the site. However, I had no way to be certain so I decided to contact Getty Images and let them know about the use and let them investigate. I did so via their live chat the day after I noticed the presence of the logo.

I haven’t heard anything further about the matter, nor do I necessarily expect to, especially considering that I’ve written some very critical things about Getty in the past.

Still, it was amazing to see a Getty Images logo over stock video in a movie I was watching in Netflix. It was made even worse by just how unnecessary the scene actually was.

Bottom Line

In the end, making a video series that respects copyright was a big challenge, perhaps a lot bigger than it had to be. A lot of the obstacles seemed artificial to me, especially the DRM issues. While I could understand why the protections were there, there were many advertised systems that could have trivially broken the DRM schemes (at least they claimed to) but we avoided because they were illegal.

In the end, our show still stinks but it’s not because copyright got in the way. Yes, it was an added challenge in places, but not one we couldn’t overcome. No, our show stinks because A) It’s intentionally bad in places and B) We have a lot to learn and need some new equipment.

Still, the show and it’s first nine episodes have been a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to shooting the next ten and dealing with challenges may come with the territory.

This past Tuesday, March 30, 2010, I gave an hour-long webinar on copyright entitled “Copyright Basics for Creative Professionals, Media Companies and Content Archives”. The presentation was presented by Digimarc and ImageSpan and was presented to about 70 users.

The talk covers the following elements:

• Who should copyright their work;
• What a copyright protects;
• Where do you register your copyright;
• When you post your work online, the dangers you should be aware of;
• Why you should follow good licensing practices; and
• How you should respond to infringers

As you can see from the title and the topics, it is a fairly basic overview of copyright with a few interesting elements for a more web-savvy audience.

As a warning, there were some minor problems with the recording. First, you may have to turn up your volume as, for some reason, I was coming in fairly soft. Second, we did have to rush toward the end as there was a lot to get through and the presentation ran behind.

Still, for those who are interested in a quick overview of copyright law and how it applies on the Web, this might be a very good introductory course.

You can view the webinar in its entirety below or, if you wish to download it, you can get either the MP3 or the video file here.

It’s deja vu, but in a very good way. I’m going to be speaking at WordCamp Dallas, which is being held June 27th and 28th at the University of Texas at Dallas. I’ll be joining an all-star line up of speakers including Lorelle VanFossen, Liz Strauss, Cali Lewis, Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins, Dave Moyer (whom is also a fellow host with me on Aimless Agenda), DB Ferguson, Randy Hoyt and, of course, the head of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg as well as many, many others.

Needless to say, I’m feeling a bit intimidated right now.

Despite my presence, the schedule this year is packed with great speakers. The lineup is incredible and, since all of the talks, including mine, are 30 minutes, there’s a lot more different topics being covered.

This year, I’m doing a slightly different talk compared to my usual. Rather than a talk about how to protect your content on the Web, which would be hard to cram into the new timeslot anyway, I’m speaking on how to find free, legal content for your blog and how to avoid copyright issues.

For those who are interested in protecting their work, I’ll be holding a breakout session during the course of the day and will be available to talk on that topic between sessions. I’m going to bring literature and information to help people protect their writing.

Also you can watch my presentation from the 2008 WordCamp Dallas, embedded below, even though some of the technology is now a bit dated.

I definitely hope to see many of you there. Last year WordCamp Dallas was absolutely incredible and I’m hoping this year’s will be even better. With so many old faces coming back and great new ones for the first time this year, it is going to be very exciting.

If you’re in the DFW area, definitely consider attending. It’s going to be a great event. If you do attend, definitely stop by and say hello and ask any questions. I’m looking forward to seeing you!

I’m proud to announce today that I am beginning a new series of video tutorials for Tubetorial that will focus on plagiarism detection, abuse reporting and other related issues. The first of those videos, entitled “How to Find the Host of a Site” was posted yesterday and is now embedded below.

Some may remember that I did a similar video back in 2007, however, the new video is a much more up-to-date version of that video focusing on both Domain Tools and WhoIsHostingThis. This video should explain how to find the host of a site both more easily and more accurately than the previous version.

I’ve also replaced the video on the “Finding the Host” page of the site with new one since it does provide instruction on the new tools (besides, the previous video even showed the old layout for the site).

The video, for those who are interested, is also embedded below:

Preservation Today describes itself as an attempt to “Inspire the advancement of heritage values in our society using the new form of communication called social media.” More directly, it is an experiment with trying to bring social media to the heritage and preservation community.

Part of that effort is to help educate the community’s members about issues related to social media including copyright and privacy, which is where I came in.

The video below is just of my portion of the netcast, which was very brief and mostly focused on basics of copyright and Web privacy. It probably is a bit fundamental for most of the readers of this site, but I still wanted to share it as it covers some topics not routinely discussed here.

If you wish to view the full video of the netcast, you can visit Preservation Today’s home page.

The screencast is nothing short of brilliant and, in just under 20 minutes, manages to express what I have been trying to say in several articles on this site.

Perhaps the greatest indication of how effective the screencast is that Robert Scoble, formerly one of the staunchest supporters of RSS republishing, has said via FriendFeed that the video convinced him that he was wrong.

Also, Plagiarism Today does make an appearance in the screencast, at about the 12 minute mark, with reference to the Why RSS Scraping is Not OK column.

The video is embedded below so please enjoy. My thanks goes to Duncan for the effort he put into the video. I can imagine many bloggers will use this video as a tool to convince spam bloggers and other services that, perhaps, they don’t have the legal right to republish whatever they find in an RSS feed.

For smaller sites and blogs, one of the tougher challenges is obtaining or creating professional-quality content. This is especially true for news-related sites that often build upon content from mainstream media and major online news players as part of their own reporting.

Many have simply posted clips from videos or used snippets of articles and relied on fair use to protect them. While this strategy can be very effective, if done correctly, it doesn’t provide much security, especially as content creators get more aggressive in dealing with unwanted distribution of their work.

Voxant, however, feels they have a better solution. They have partnered with over 300 different news sources, including the Associated Press, Reuters and CBS, to provide free and legally embeddable videos, images and articles to blogs and Web sites, regardless of size.

Their site, Voxant Newsroom, not only opens up a slew of new content to bloggers, but also centralizes it into one place. making it easy to find whatever one is looking for while making it extremely easy to embed.

For Bloggers

For bloggers and other Web publishers, Voxant provides several very compelling reasons to look at its service.

1. Quality Content: The news-related content provided by Voxant is very high quality, the same routinely seen on mainstream media and other professional news sites. Many of the sources, including the AP and Reuters, were only previously available to very large partners who could afford subscriptions to the service.


2. Variety: Voxant has a very surprisingly large selection of content available on its site. With hundreds of thousands of items across a variety of subjects, it is possible to find video and articles on everything from business and politics to humor and entertainment.


3. Near Real-Time: Many sites that provide embedded content come with a delay between when the material hits other sites and is available for general use. Much of the content on Voxant’s site appears within a day of going live elsewhere. This makes it much easier to find current content to use.


4. Local Focus: Voxant also has over 100,000 video clips from local television station news broadcasts and includes material from cities such as Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Boston, St. Paul and more. May likely be the best option for bloggers with a local focus.


5. Profit Sharing: Unlike most sites that allow video embedding, Voxant shares profits with sites that republish the content they provide and do so at a set rate.

It has the potential to be a major boon for bloggers as they work to compete with larger news sites for visitors and subscribers.

For Content Creators

On the other side of the coin, content creators also have many good reasons to partner with Voxant. Not only do they earn a portion of the advertising revenues was well, which comes at zero cost to them since Voxant provides all of the hosting, Voxant also provides better protection for the content than most traditional content embedding services.

Videos embedded through Voxant can not be easily downloaded in FLV format, like YouTube clips can be, and all of the articles and images are embedded in Flash to avoid easy copying and pasting as well as allow for advertising insertion.

However, likely the most important reason for content creators to weigh using Voxant is due to the fact that the site allows an extremely high level of control and tracking. Their dashboard allows you not only to see how many times it has been viewed, but also where it is available and control the use of the content within the terms of the license.

This can help help news organizations maintain control over their intellectual property, even though it is hosted by Voxant and available for easy embedding.

Caveats and Concerns

But while the service Voxant provides with its Newsroom site is very impressive and provide many reasons to be excited, there are still some issues that add some friction to the experience.

1. Intimidating Licensing Terms: I am not someone easily put off by reading a license agreement but the Voxant agreement, especially as it is displayed in the small pop-up window, is very intimidating. However, this is something that they are working on in an upcoming update.


2. Limited Embed Options: Though they provide more options than most sites, it may be difficult finding an embed, especially for video, that looks good on your site. There is no way to currently manipulate colors or appearance of the player, something that may change in a future version.


3. No Editing: Where sites such as Hulu allow users to select a time range to target with their embed, Voxant does not currently provide that due to the wishes of their content partners.


4. Pure Flash: Though the heavy use of Flash is what enables Voxant to display ads against the content, it may frustrate some to note that both the articles and the images available for embedding are both done so using Flash and are not available in either clear text or jpg format. Other sites may be preferred content sources for those kinds of content.


5. Advertising Enforced: Many blogs do not wish to run ads on their site but, unlike YouTube and other embeds, Voxant forced advertising in all embedded content, even if the site does not participate in the revenue sharing program.

Conclusions

What is impressive about Voxant is not the technology behind it. Flash video streaming and embedding has been available on a variety of sites for quite some time and some sites, such as Blip.TV, provide more elegant players and tools.

Rather, what makes Voxant stand out is what it has achieved behind the scenes, getting hundreds of copyright holders, including many key industry players, to agree to have their content made available for free, legal embedding on a variety of sites.

This has opened up a new world of content to the general public and makes it possible for an average blogger to provide news and information once only available to major news outlets.

Best of all, by providing a compelling legal alternative, Voxant may be helping discourage content theft of these works and turning what might have been a copyright infringement into a mutually beneficial relationship.

It will be interesting to see if and how bloggers use this service and what impact it has on Web-based news reporting.

Sample Video Embed

Sample Article Embed

Most of the readers of this site may think that this talk is a little bit on the basic side. It was definitely an introductory discussion that may be a little bit below some of the long-term readers of this site. However, as I found out compiling my notes, a refresher course never hurts either.

I want to give a special thanks to John P. for arranging the video and getting it online as well as the wonderful people working for the city of Frisco, TX for both allowing us to host the event in their town hall and for doing the video editing and making me look almost good.

The video is below followed by links to other session videos as well as some of my personal WordCamp memories.

Other Sessions

Here are the other sessions that are currently available:

• Matt Mullenweg: WordPress 2.5 and Beyond
• John Pozadzides: 45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog
• Cali Lewis & Neal Campbell: Just Start
• Liz Strauss: C’mon, Let’s Talk!
• Lorelle VanFossen: WordPress Power Tips
• Charles Stricklin & Company: WordPress Podcast Live (also includes me)
• Aaron Brazell: WordPress FAQs

There are other sessions slated to go up later this week or early next so pay attention to John P’s blog and see if any of the new sessions posted are of interest!

Personal Memories

WordCamp Dallas was a lifetime of memories in a few short days. I can not even begin to thank all of the people I met for making it special but I do want to thank Charles Stricklin, the nice people at the city of Frisco and everyone that contributed to the event. It was a great time.

With that in mind, here are, in no particular order, five of the strongest memories I’ve carried away from the event.

1. The unveiling of Woopra.
2. Matt Mullenweg announcing the release of WordPress 2.5 and 100s of laptops start firing up.
3. Lorelle ordering a large vegetable plate at a steakhouse and making all of the meat eaters, myself included, jealous.
4. Matt Mullenweg “hijacking” my laptop during the WordPress Podcast and using my beat up computer (his fingerprints are worth way more than the laptop).
5. Seeing Lorelle, Liz, Charles and everyone else for the first time in person and realizing that they are just as wonderful face to face as they are over the Web.

All in all, the experience was great and I can not wait until next year!

However, far too many people learn too late that agreeing to a TOS is not only a binding contract, but that those contracts often force you to waive rights in your work that, otherwise you’d never give up willingly.

So, in the spirit of the DMCA seven series I did previously, I’ve decided to start looking at the TOS agreements of popular sites on the Web and work to find out what rights you give up and what you can do about it.

This week, we’re going to start with video sharing sites, some of the most popular, and controversial sites on the Web for sharing content.

TOS Link: Terms of Use
Rights Granted: “…use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business.”
Sub-Licensable: Yes
Revokable: Yes
How to Revoke: Delete Videos
Notes: The scariest thing about YouTube’s license is that YouTube reserves the right to license your videos posted with just about any party they desire. However, that license is revoked by simply deleting your videos from the site. However, the license does not end upon removal of the videos, but rather, “within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your User Videos from the YouTube Service.” What that exactly entails, is unclear.
Conclusions: YouTube certainly claims a wide collection of rights. But they specifically mention the use of use in “any media formats and through any media channels” as well as use for the promotion of the site. Users should take heart at the easy revocation of the license, but should also be warned that the license granted by posting a comment is both perpetual and irrevocable.

TOS Link: Revver Member Agreemente
Rights Granted: “…use, reproduce, modify and adapt (solely to permit Revver to conform and adapt Your Video Content to technical requirements, including without limitation the right to adapt to streaming, downloading, broadcast, mobile, digital, thumbnail, scanning or other technologies), excerpt, publish, transmit, publicly perform, display, reference, store, host, index and cache, in any form, medium or technology now known or later developed, any Video Content, Member Comments or materials You submit to Revver, in whole or in part, whether created by or for You, by any method, and in any and all media, whether currently existing or hereafter developed.”
Sub-Licensable: Yes
Revocable: Yes/No
How to Revoke: Disabling Account or Providing Notification
Notes: Revver’s policies are confusing and difficult to understand for event he most astute in this area. They actually have three licenses, a license to Revver, quoted above, a online commercial license to others (limited to the purposes of the Revver Syndication Network) and an irrevocable non-commercial distribution license that uses Creative Commons’ BY-NC-ND License.
Conclusions: If you discount the mandatory and irrevocable CC license, the Revver License is not that much different from other sites. What is unique is that everything in the Revver license is built around commercial use. This is because Revver puts ads in all videos and shares profits with users. Much of the difference can be found in that.

TOS Link: Google Terms of Service
Rights Granted: “…reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.”
Sub-Licensable: Yes
Revocable: No
How to Revoke: N/A
Notes: The rights Google takes in the work are relatively narrow and limited only to Google’s “enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services”. Google also hints that the license can be revoked in some cases, but I was unable to find a TOS specific to Google Video to determine how.
Conclusions: Though Google has a bad rap about removing infringing works, their license here is fairly reasonable. Though the license itself is irrevocable, the scope is so narrow that removal of the work would be tantamount to a revocation in most regards. Still, it is worrisome that there is no clear way to terminate the agreement.

TOS Link: Blip.TV TOS
Rights Granted: “…to use, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, transfer, transmit, distribute and publish that content for the purposes of displaying that content on Blip.tv and on other Web sites, devices and/or platforms.”
Sub-Licensable: Yes
Revocable: Yes
How to Revoke: Remove Video & Request Permanent Deletion
Notes: Most video sites, in their TOS, let you know that a copy of your video, albeit not one for display, may still be available after you delete your copies of the content. Blip.TV offers you a means to delete even those hidden copies by contacting customer service.
Conclusions: All in all, Blip has a fairly narrow license and even promises not to sell advertising on your content without permission. It also provides control over what formats your work is distributed in “To the extent reasonable and possible.” Their dedication to being an open platform is taken very seriously and reflects well in the relative fairness of their terms.

TOS Link: Terms and Conditions
Rights Granted: “…to use, copy, prepare derivative works of (including without limitation, to rename, edit, shorten, split the videos into different segments, and use the entire video or segments as part of compilations), display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the Website and Metacafe’s (and its successor’s) business, including without limitation to grant access to the Website to third parties to view the User Submission (and derivative works thereof).”
Sub-Licensable: No (transferable)
Revocable: Yes
How to Revoke: Notification
Notes: It is important to note that Metacafe’s Producer and Producer Rewards programs have different licensing requirements. Second, though the license does not specifically say that it is revocable, it does offer a means to terminate the license. Also, the license does not say that the rights granted are sub-licenseable, but that they are only transferable. This means that they can be given to another company, for example, in the event of a buyout, but can not be sub-licensed, such as you licensing your work to another site while retaining their rights.
Conclusions: All totaled, Metacafe has a very reasonable license and is one of the few on the list that does not explicitly require you to grant them the right to sub-license their rights in the work. It also limits its rights to uses “in connection with the Website” and only grants third parties the right to view and use the content for “non-commercial and personal use”.

TOS Link: Terms of Service
Rights Granted: “…reproduce and display Your Content, in whole or in part, and to display, perform, distribute and transmit the same via the features that enable the Website to be accessed both on the Internet and through any other electronic communication media or technology, now known or later developed, and to adjust the format of Your Content as necessary for the purposes of reproduction, display and transmission.”
Sub-Licensable: No
Revocable: ???
How to Revoke: ???
Notes: Dailymotion is the only site that makes no mention of their license to your content being either sub-licenseable or transferable. However, it also makes no mention of how and if the license can be revoked, even though it does so with the the license it grants you regarding its copyrighted work.
Conclusions: Dailymotion’s license, to me, feels incomplete and that worries me. Though the license to use your content is very narrow and would, most likely, be effectively revoked on the deletion of the video, I would feel better if the license would explicitly talk about whether the license is transferable, sub-liceseable and revocable.

TOS Link: Terms of Use
Rights Granted: “…publicly display, publicly perform, distribute, and reproduce the Materials in any manner and in any medium, including, without limitation, through physical copies such as still photos, videos, and CDs, by television by any means, on or via the Internet, including, without limitation, the World Wide Web, and any other two-way transmission control protocol / internet protocol (TCP/IP) based distribution network or similar networks or technologies now known or hereafter to become known….”
Sub-Licensable: Yes
Revocable: No
How to Revoke: N/A
Notes: Break limits users to personal and non-commercial use of the content on the site. It also designates the the license is perpetual, meaning that there is no way to exit it. All of the rights above are assigned to Break and can not be revoked without special agreement.
Conclusions: Break’s license is worrisome to me. Not only does it grab an extreme amount of rights, including specifying some uses that go well above and beyond what one would expect from posing on a video sharing site, but it also states that the rights are perpetual and offers no means to terminate the agreement. It, to me, seems to be an extreme rights grab that is beyond what is actually necessary to run the site.

Conclusions

By in large, most of the video sharing sites have reasonable terms of service that allow you to quickly and easily exit the agreement if you are unhappy with the way the site is treating you and/or your content.

I am hesitant to offer any conclusions on which site is the best simply because, though some sites grab more rights than others, it might be a worthwhile exchange. Many, for example, will be fine with Revver since the site shares revenue and YouTube might be acceptable to others due to its large community.

Personally, for those seeking to make money, I feel that Revver is the strongest. Those seeking to keep as many of their rights as possible, Blip.TV is very strong as is Metacafe. Also, Dailymotion, with a little more clarity, could also be a great site.

In the end, you have to decide for yourself how much risk you are willing to take and what rights you are willing to surrender in your work. It is important to read the terms very carefully and draw your own conclusions.

As for me, I’m moving my videos over to Blip.TV in the coming weeks. Not only do I like their terms, but also their player and general appearance suit me better.

However, that is just my personal decision, I know many will disagree with it.

The new version of the video, which The Richter Scales refer to as version 1.1, not only adds a full credit roll, but a link to a static credits page and also removes Lane Hartwell’s original photograph.

This resolves all of the known copyright issues in the video itself and, it would seem, clears the video for a long run on YouTube. However, the issue is not resolved and, in fact, some elements of it seem to be only intensifying.

Hartwell’s Reply

Hartwell, for her part, seemed unimpressed by the modification and reupload of the video. She posted an update to her blog stating that she is continuing to seek compensation for the use and is sending an invoice to the Richter Scales.

According to Hartwell, she will use any payment from the invoice to fist pay her attorney and donate the rest to the Kids with Cameras charity, a non-profit that teaches photography to children.

There has been no indication from The Richter Scales as to whether or not they intend to pay this invoice upon receipt but, according to Hartwell, they had already declined this offer during the early negotiations.

Some Analysis

Since my original article divided up the “Mistake Were Made” section into two parts, one looking at the Richter Scales and the other at Hartwell, I’m going to do the same here with the follow-up.

The Richter Scales

The Richter Scales came through beautifully in this matter for the most part. The new video includes a full credit roll and I particularly like the addition of a static credit page that is referenced in the video. I think it’s a great idea and should be looked at as a possible industry standard for how content used in web videos is attributed.

It is a neat idea and a great way to combine standard industry practices in movie making with the Web.

I am slightly disappointed in their statement “when we created Version 1.0 we didn’t see similar YouTube videos crediting every image used, nor did what we read about fair use point us towards the need to do so.”

That seems, in a way, to be an attempt to shift some of the blame to other YouTube members that don’t follow good attribution practices. If that logic is followed, then the fact that about 60% of my writing that is reused is unattributed means that it is OK for others to the same even though it is a clear violation of my license.

Providing attribution is the right thing to do and that is regardless of what others do or what even what the law says.

Still, I am very glad that The Richter Scales have been made “sensitive” to the attribution issue and did such a great job providing it for all of the material used in the video.

Let’s hope that this saga causes others to take more interest in attribution and follow their lead.

Lane Hartwell

My main criticism of Hartwell the first time around was that she was overplaying her hand when it came to the damage the video did to her work and underplaying the fair use issues.

Sadly, her recent move only makes the situation worse.

You don’t run a Web site called “Plagiarism Today” for nearly two and a half years without being a believer in the importance of copyright protection. I sympathize with Hartwell greatly both as a fellow artist and as someone who has had their works ripped off many times over. However, I can not support this action as it ignores both the steps The Richter Scales have taken to make things right and fair use issues that are still present.

Yes, her attorney needs to be paid and I am sure that the bill is eye-popping (I’m yet to see a legal bill that isn’t) but it wasn’t necessary to resolve this issue. When she hired the attorney, she was aware of the fair use questions and the unlikeliness that she would ever collect money from the case.

This is why artists should take the time to learn copyright law themselves so that they can protect their own works on the Web and not require the aid of an attorney save extreme cases where a lawsuit is likely or strange legal issues are raised. It can help save time, money and drama by putting you more in control of your own content.

After all, I’ve shut down hundreds of plagiarists without paying attorney fees. I’ve consulted several as friends, but never as a client, and I have never found myself in the center of something like this.

Resolution

I don’t really see The Richter Scales paying the invoice. They have little motivation to so and, if the invoice includes legal fees plus overage, it is likely to be a pretty steep bill that they would not be able to pay easily.

However, I do think that The Richter Scales should consider donating to Kids With Cameras, not so much to appease Hartwell, but because it is a wonderful charity and everyone should consider it. Even better, in this case, it would be a great way to show that there are no hard feelings and that there are issues bigger than an online feud over a photograph.

Given the time of year, it is only appropriate to be both forgiving and charitable.

As far as Hartwell’s legal expenses go, there is a simple solution. If she truly needs help paying her expenses, then I am certain her fans will be happy to help. They have been very supportive of her through this and I’m sure they would be willing to chip in.

Though it might seem unfair to shift the financial burden over to fans, this model has been used many times before successfully, though typically in legal defense funds.

The goal of supporting artists in protecting their work is certainly a noble one and, even though this particular case was misguided in several ways, I certainly don’t want to discourage other artists from getting help when they need it and I know that her supporters feel the same way.

With that in mind, a legal fund not only makes sense, but might help contribute to a much larger cause as well.

Conclusions

This case is not about who “wins” or “loses”. It’s about finding a fair resolution and one that is both peaceful and practical.

I think this whole ordeal has opened up a lot of eyes to both the need for proper attribution and respecting artist’s work, but also the power of remixing as an art form and the need to balance the rights of the artist with the rights of the person doing the remixing.

Extremists on both sides have had their views dulled a bit by this case and I think, strangely, that this whole ordeal might bring the bulk of Web closer to the center on these matters.

For all of the trolls, insults, heated exchanges and outright flame wars, there is a good chance that this case could, in the long run, help bring about peace.

That is the hope at least. However, whether it comes to fruition is really a matter of how we respond to what happened and how we carry on in the future.

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