It's been a long time since we used this site, but we are dismantling most of our sites and going back to our core. We are working back down to only about 5 to maybe 8 sites tops for all our concerns. We have been changing and updating everything. We have now removed ads from all of our sites as we are sick of seeing ads everywhere we go and being blasted by them. We are no longer participating in that.
Now down to the issue of this post. What you need to know before you go creating videos for the Internet. In case you have not noticed, the Internet has changed a great deal over the past year alone. It's getting way to commercial and the gatekeepers are working very hard at locking this medium up now. We really don't like the new web experience at all. Either way, because the web is being locked up more and more, issues with who owns what content are a growing concern and it's getting harder and harder to get your voice heard out there.
So here are some very important facts you are going to have to deal with now. Before you post a video, who owns the content in that video is the biggest question you are going to face. Just because you may have shot the video does not mean you own the content. Really. If you have a radio on in the background, some band can have your video knocked out of the postings, or your sound disabled. Same if you have the TV on when filming and it's either heard or seen in the film.
Did you use any music in the background? Do you own that music? If you did not create and play every instrument in the piece, then you do not own it. Just because you bought a CD or downloaded a song does not give you the right to use it in your own video which then makes it someone else's property because you violated a copyright law at that point. Your video might not be taken down, but you have earned a ding because of it.
If you are posting music for a band, you need written permission from each member of that band to post the video under contract and the music must be 100& original and not the band playing someone else's songs. Otherwise there goes that ding again. Do you have other people in the video besides yourself? Do you have their written permission? If not, one good fight with any of them and your video might become a violation of that other person's rights that they may choose to exercise. Unless the piece is a news piece where you do not need permission, you had better get permission in advance.
Okay, now let's say you have gotten everyone in the video signed off on a sheet of paper allowing you permission to use them in the video without compensation and you have now decided to go with Royalty Free music in the Background. Before you even consider posting that video, you will need to provide the name of the song, the location of the track, the license of the track(s), and also the legal ID for the track and your proof of purchase to use the track in the way in which it is being used. No joke. Failure to provide any area here could result in your video being pulled off of even You Tube these days.
Public Domain. Warning; Public Domain music and or videos may contain content that is under copyright by a company somewhere in the world. You need to check every aspect of a piece you get from the public domain as it may not be public after all.
Let me explain, just because a piece is in the public domain, all I have to do to lay a copyright to a piece is change some aspect of the piece just enough to create a new piece from it. Example. I recently took a pure public domain video and removed the original soundtrack from it and added a Royalty Free music track to it that was more fitting to the piece. I modernized the piece and made enough of a change to it to lay a copyright claim to it. Same for a soundtrack. If I take an original analog soundtrack and copy it to a digital source file, add my own icon and meta data to the piece, I have altered the public domain piece enough to make a legal claim on the piece and prevent others from copying my own work. I can then sue you for copying my work if you do so. The main piece itself may be in the public domain, by my copy is not because I changed it enough to make it a modern piece.
So if you are posting what you think is public domain videos on You Tube and you get dinged for copyright infringement, it's because someone posted a copyrighted piece in the public domain that should not have been posted there. I have seen it happen a lot. There are ways to strip the copyrighted goods off the piece and alter it to your own and not get dinged, but that is for a new topic at a later time.
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