Stealing Someone's Work

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Don't know about that, as much as I despise people stealing it's not our task to be judge and jury, maybe it was a mistake, maybe they where just testing. On FB there was one reaction about the embedded video having the logo of the owner at the end, so why go through the trouble of stealing if everyone can see who's video it is? A real thief would have ripped the video and removed the logo at the end, only then you"d know their true intentions.

I see a lot of video's on Vimeo with music of which I"m sure they have not been licensed properly, I also see quite a few Beglian weddingvideographers using Vimeo instead of their own website to promote their video with a song from well known music bands, so technically they are all thieves as well but no-one makes a fuzz about it. Maybe we should start blogging about that and let them prove they are innocent in order to remove the blogpost again.

Still, one would expect a videography firm that was a going concern would have plenty of their own work to use as placeholders without having to grab something off of Vimeo. Something is fishy with their excuse.

Not suggesting that one should become a self-appointed copyright vigilante but it's in the self-interest of every creative professional to make a big deal out of protecting one's work and other's works by extension.. After all, the rights to one's work that one possesses is what gives that work ANY economic value and not making a big deal over the use of unlicensed music ultimately will lead to loss of any value one might obtain from marketing one's own work as it will become fair game to use anything one wishes for any purpose one wants whether you own the rights to it or not..

[Noa Put]

it's in the self-interest of every creative professional to make a big deal out of protecting one's work and other's works by extension..

That was my point, a lot of people are making a big deal out of one videographer using another ones work without permission, while there are a lot of Vimeo wedding videos out there that are used to promote a business with unlicensed music and nobody seems to care, that's the part that annoys me, sure I don't have any "hard" proof but whenever I hear a queen or u2 song I can't imagine a simple wedding videographer paying the rights to use that online, I once asked the price to play 15 seconds that was to be used for a trailer and projected onto a cinemascreen of a U2 song at a business event, EMI told me it was at least 15.000 euro...

[Chris Davis]

I agree with Noa. We've got a dozen or more videographers on Facebook and here all up in arms over this, but the "victim" in this case is using popular copyright music in her videos posted on Facebook. Sure, they're lesser-known songs, but I recognize a few (from Mighty Kate and Lovelite.) I'm fairly certain she didn't license those songs. While she's not passing them off as her own, she certainly is profiting from their use. Do we go all "vigilante" on her and report those videos to the artists and/or publishers?

[Noa Put]

Do we go all "vigilante" on her and report those videos to the artists and/or publishers?

If that would be the case we should, it is the right thing to do when you find out someone has stolen the work from another artist and is using it without their permission. Does anyone has a facebook account with lots of friends so we can ask everyone to contact her to ask to remove the concerned video's? Maybe whoever has a blog should start blogging about it so everyone knows she is a thieve.
In the meantime I will start up a new topic here so we can follow up whats' going on.

[Noa Put]

Well, ok, maybe not, but IF she is using not licensed music, what's the difference between stealing a video and stealing music?

[Jan Vanhoecke]

Youtube uses a "content id" system which recognises the used music in video's. This content id system contacts, messages the copyrightowners about the online use of their produced music. These content owners can take the video down or leave them up.
If you use a copyrighted musicpiece in a video, you're notified who the artist, owns it and states what you're allowed to do or don't: do nothing, remove it,.... So Youtube acts as copyright-watchdog. And this system will allow more music to be put online in the future (according to google-youtube managers).

The ads which appear in videos with copyrighted music are revenues for copyrightowners. That's why there are no ads in video's which contains not-copyrighted music.

[Chris Davis]

Originally Posted by Jan Vanhoecke

So Youtube acts as copyright-watchdog.

Your post seems to suggest that you can use copyright material without permission, and if YouTube doesn't cry foul, everything is ok.

The system YouTube has put in place is simply a private company's attempt to find an amicable solution to a wide-spread problem. It's not a litmus test to determine if anyone rights have been violated.

Besides, there are an infinite number of ways to put video online without using YouTube.

As I mentioned in a previous post - copyright owners are already using technology to scour the internet for unlicensed use of their music and sending invoices. One of my former clients got a $1,000 invoice for such use.

[Paul R Johnson]

The website now has a message from the site owner saying sorry - however, they keep mentioning in capitals it was ONLY USED AS A PLACEHOLDER - I fail to see how this makes it ok. We only stole your work and presented it as our own until we had something of ours to show instead?

Personally I loved how the owner switched the material and handled it.

[Noa Put]

ah whatever, time to move on, since no-one even responds about the supposedly unlicensed use of music thing I don't see why we should continue to drag this along, just close the thread and start filming again.

[Taky Cheung]

There is a difference in this situation. It's plagiarism.

[Noa Put]

Using music or using a video without the owner's permission is exactly the same for me.

[Taky Cheung]

No.. there is a big difference.

In this situation, it is using someone else entire piece of work showing as it's their own work. It's not a music licensing issue.

Similarly, if a college student submitted a thesis using word by word copying from other paper. That's plagiarism, not a copyright/licensing issue. If he/she quotes from other paper and citing the source, that's the right way to do. That student doesn't need a license nor permission from the original author.

[Noa Put]

If he/she quotes from other paper and citing the source, that's the right way to do.

Well, they did... At the end of the embedded video there was a logo from the actual owner, so then it's all ok, no?

[Taky Cheung]

No, it's not okay. I don't remember seeing the original video has watermark or logo on it. Even if there is a logo, it isn't being "cited" by the offending party. Vimeo makes it worst as at the end it shows 3 more videos from Shannon.

[Noa Put]

They embedded the video, this you know because the owner replaced the original video with her message which then showed up on cupid's site, every video the owner has online has her logo very big at the end..., so contrary what many say here and based on the fact that you clearly could see who made the video I do believe now it was NOT the intention to do wrong, otherwise you would rip the video and remove the logo, only then you could speak of "stealing".
If you want to believe otherwise, that's ok too.