"No material from any Official UCSD Web site may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way, without explicit permission, except that you may download one copy of the materials on any single computer for your personal, non-commercial home use only, provided you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices."In other words, "Kids, get of my lawn, this site is run by the owners of a 1980's TV station!"
Consider the Tree of Life project, which offers a wonderful presentation on information about all kinds of animals. It contains a blanket license statement that reads,
"Most Tree of Life content is protected by copyright, and visitors to the ToL site may view, browse, and/or download these materials for temporary copying purposes only, provided these uses are for noncommercial, personal purposes. Except as provided by law, this material may not be further reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, displayed, published, or sold in whole or in part, without prior written permission from the copyright owner."So how temporary, how non-commercial, how educational, how personal are the requirements? What a minefield! This reminds me of a kid who will have people over but won't let anyone touch his toys. Adding to the offense is that they have NOAA videos of fishes, apparently clamped down under this blanket license.
Similarly, the photo-sharing web site Flickr has had a "Blog This!" button prominently displayed on the page for every photo. Browsers of the site were invited by that button to take any image and blog it, by making use of the automated embed codes. It was one of the first and greatest implementations of the "Web 2.0" culture. However, some professional photographers complained that their work (which they themselves uploaded to a photo sharing website with "Blog This!" buttons) was being used on blogs without their permission. This was right around the time of the Yahoo! purchase, and Flickr eventually caved and said of course you had to ask permission before making use of any photo. Subtract some "point ohs" from Web 2.0.
All of these examples above end up creating a spirit of intimidation in the person who might try to exercise their fair use rights on a piece of video they've run across. Nonetheless, let it be said that I detest actual piracy. Alex Wild, a professional entomologist and photographer, has complained about repeated infringing use of his copyrighted work, often by pesticide companies. I support full weight of law to punish copyright breakers.
My solution is for us to try to find ways to commercially support those who offer their work under more loose terms, such as those provided by Creative Commons. For example, the attribution license says:
"This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation."My publicizing the work of those who make high-quality, inspiring, beautiful, and/or scientifically informative videos of the sea, AND take a risk of giving away without the guarantee of a return, is one of the main purposes of this blog.
Why do you have some commercial things here, like kickstarter.com appeals for funds for commercial projects?
I didn't say I opposed making money, I said I opposed setting up legal land mines that intimidate those wanting to make fair use commentary on materials that you uploaded. The person who creates a kickstarter project usually makes a really cool video about their passion, and I don't see how they would complain if I shared their appeal for funds. I don't think they'd object in the same way an underwater videographer would if I "embedded" his or her entire "All Rights Reserved" library to a blog. The latter has the right to decide how their materials are used. I have the passion about supporting those who make "freely available" videos.
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