Here’s an interesting post (via Waxy) about YouTube from someone who’s fed up of having his videos deleted because they’re copyright.
To be honest, I’m not surprised, and the author probably has no real grounds to complain. These video services are treading a very fine line, and frankly are lawsuits waiting to happen if they’re not very very careful. I’m not surprised, and don’t have an awful lot of sympathy with the writer. I’d love to upload all my videos, but they tend to be full of copyrighted music. I’d prefer not to have record companies come after me.
The other day I mentioned that if I’d made a TV ad that I thought was very funny, I should immediately upload it to YouTube (see, for example, the Carlbserg Pub Team ad). But one of the problems I overlooked was that performers and music rights have to be paid for each time the ad’s played. Suddenly this cost becomes an unknown. That Carlsberg ad has not been placed by their agency, but by a viewer of Soccer AM on Sky where the ad was captured from. That’s not to say that rights issues can’t be sorted out – film companies seem to manage with their trailers. But it’s yet another rights nightmare.