You're welcome Mark.....and I don't think this incident will ruin anything as in folks not sharing, training vids ,etc....it just brings a sense of awareness to all of us that there are idiots like this out there.....

He's Back!
 

That's right, Mel is back at it.
http://integrityvideo.com/oneknight4...%20Gallery.htm

Sometimes the clips work and sometimes they don't. I had the best luck downloading the clips in a new window.

I have contacted his ISP's legal team. I'll let you know their response.

Just as a question, are the training videos this guy ripped of registered with the copyright office?

(Yes, yes, I know they are automatically copyrighted the moment they are fixed in a tangible medium... I'm married to a copyright attorney.)

Because if you have sent the training videos in to the Copyright Office and registered them, the DAMAGES you can collect will be much higher than if you hadn't.

Just one more reason to go through the extra steps of licking a stamp.

(Good move on contacting the ISP. If they leave his site up after being notified that he's in infringement, they become liable. He may not have deep pockets, but I'll bet they do.)

You know I think Mark is missing a marketing opportunity here.. Just start selling clips already encoded in your favorite codecs for videographers to use as marketing materials. No Watermarks, they own the copyright and at $300.00 per 5 minute clip, heck..

This is the reason I encode everything in Flash Video now and built a flash player embedded into a SWF that loads the external FLV file into a frame. Then I disable the Flash right-click menu and fill the page with only the flash file. It won't stop the hardcore high-tech guys, but it stops Integrity Video type guys..

It's sorta like a alarm system, they see it and the right-click save as doesn't work they will keep going to find something easier to steal..

Not to mention Flash 8 player is free and runs on macs and pc's so I don't have to deal with these emails

"I tried to view your clip but I don't have this quicktime program and your site sent me to the quicktime download, but it sounds like this could be a virus, I'll have to call AOL and see if it's ok to install this quicktime it would really be easier if you just put the dvd on the website so I can watch it with my PowerDVD player, everything is doing it."

FYI - the Quicktime player is just as free as the Flash player, as is the Windows Media player. In my experience, people are more likely to have the updated Quicktime or Windows Media players. Just a thought.

Maybe you can start posting this stuff in some of the bridal/wedding online places. Just to let the brides know that there are people out there pretending to be well qualified videographers, but are actually hacks.

Travis

I agree.. However it's much easier for someone to rip a .MOV or .WMV then a .FLV filed called as an external file from the .SWF file and which wouldn't let the user see the name of the clip..

In regards to most people, even better reason for Flash 8 video the dudes looking to rip will just move on..:)

Well, I agree as well. Definitely more work involved in ripping off a Flash file.

I just choose to post Quicktime and Windows Media files because that serves my clients better, and the odds that my videos are going to be ripped off are pretty small, and even if they are it won't really affect my clients, which is where my primary concern lies.

True that..

A Couple of Thoughts
 

You can't really stop someone from stealing clips that you put up on the world-wide-web, if they are really, really just absolutely determined (some sleaze ball with a real mind to, can write software to intercept the data stream at the TCP/IP data packet level, if nothing else), but you sure can make it difficult (and lower forms of life aren't usually to bright). Using java script is one approach, where your HTML document calls a java script routine from another file on your server, that contains the path information for the video file, rather than having that information wide out in the open on the HTML page. You can also take out indentation and line break formatting in your HTML, to make it a little harder to read. There's lots of ways to make things tougher to steal.

Another approach, would be to plan out the clips, from the get-go, as much as is practical, to include your website address, conspicuously displayed, with some artistry, in places that would be quite difficult to remove it, without utterly ruining the clips (do what you do best: be creative!). That way, if some scum-ball, miserable excuse for pond scum, does steal your material and put it up on their site, they'll be advertising for you! (and you can send them a thank you card at Christmas time!)

Mark,

Having paid for a couple of your videos and benifited from them I would be interested in helping. Do you have a physical address on this guy?

Mike

in the case of wmv, your statement is only correct if you put the clip on the web as an http-sourced file... if it's served up as a .wsx-sourced(or similar) file, the actual file source location is buried in the .wsx reference file, which makes it very difficult to download the clip itself to someone's hard drive, in a file that they can steal and post elsewhere.

you can serve up your wmv files from those .wsx links by renting streams on a windows media server; there are many places on the 'net to do that, and the prices can actually be pretty reasonable... one advantage to doing that is better download performance than you'll get with http-sourced files, or flash files, for that matter.

if you are going to use flash, do it only with the new on2 codec version of flash, as all of the older flash codecs are garbage... it took flash a long time to step up to the video quality that has been around for years, with wmv and realmedia.

the best solution for removing copyrighted material from a website is to send a dmca takedown notice to the webhosting company that owns the server that hosts the stolen clips, and they are required by law to take the website down immediately(within 3 days?)... they don't even have to notify the webmaster of the offending site.

you do want to make sure that your complaint is legit, because there are provisions within the dmca for a big fine, for those who file false copyright takedown notices... but i think that dmca copyright notices have become very common these days, most big webhosting sites have links directly to their dmca complaint departments.

Hi Robert,

The clips that were stolen were taken from our training DVDs, but thanks for all of the great information on protecting web based video. You are very well versed on the subject.

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the offer. No, I don't have a physical address. This is all I have.
Morrison, Melzin melmorrison2005@yahoo.com
PO BOX 4171
Westminster, CA 92683
714-379-3804