While the recent news of a YouTube Hack has proven to be nothing more than a maintenance message from the company themselves, the joke message they chose to post on their front page has stuck with me.
Based on an old internet meme, the phrase “ALL YOUR VIDEOS ARE BELONG TO US” is actually very true in the case of YouTube.
In short, when you upload a video to YouTube, you grant them a license that allows them to do with it as they please. They can sell it, license it, remix it, make t-shirts, put it in a movie or on a cereal box - whatever fits their business model, without even an email message letting you know.
"For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successor's) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each user of the YouTube Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms of Service. The foregoing license granted by you terminates once you remove or delete a User Submission from the YouTube Website."
It is good to know that if you delete a video from YouTube, then the rights you have granted them terminate. However, once they have distributed your video “in any media format and through any media channel”, that’s a little hard to take back, right?
They also only “broadcast” video in the Flash video format, which means its very difficult for others to re-use video on YouTube for purposes of quoting, parody, or other uses that fall under artistic license. Even if the video I post on YouTube is in the Public Domain or licensed under a Creative Commons license, the only way someone else can use that video is through using a hack utility or a screencapture tool.
YouTube also has a history of turning a blind eye to copyright infringement, so even mainstream copyrighted video apparently “BELONG TO US” (until the hollywood lawyers come knocking).
Regardless, usually I am willing to turn a blind eye, and even use the service myself (as you can see on this very blog), because they seem to know how to build something that works, and draws in millions of “regular people” to visit the site. “Jokes” like putting a message up which reminds me of the compromise I make everytime I am their user, make me regret that choice.
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So, you post something on the interwebs and later you have second thoughts about it when just about every public service on the internet says in their EULA that they’ll use it as they see fit if they’re not saying that they’re just taking it away from you.
I’m happy I’m not posting on the internet. Too many people I don’t know just want to get their hands on my stuff.
ha.
reminds me when i launched vlogdir.com i had “all your vlog are belong to us” in the page footer.
not license related, only a fun pun.
Yahoo! “ALL YOUR VIDEOS ARE BELONG TO US” as well:
You retain ownership to the Video Content You submit for inclusion into the Yahoo! Video Service. However, by submitting Your Video Content to Yahoo!, You hereby grant Yahoo! the following worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable and transferable rights and licenses:
a. to host, cache, store, archive, index, crawl, create algorithms based thereon, modify or transcode the Video Content to appropriate media formats, standards or mediums as part of the Yahoo! Video Service;
b. to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, remix, excerpt, adapt, prepare derivative works of, publicly perform and publicly display the Video Content on the Yahoo! Video Service or on any Yahoo! property, including in connection with any distribution or syndication arrangement thereof with third parties or third party sites, in any media format or medium and through any media channels; and
c. to use Your Video Content for advertising, promotional or commercial purposes, including without limitation, the right to publicly display, perform, reproduce and distribute Your Video Content in any media format or medium and through any media channels.
http://video.yahoo.com/html/tos.html
ps. Who copied who..?
Wow. Thanks for pointing that out Shawn.
Somewhere there must be a great book of legal templates that represent “just how it has to be done” and the “of course we own everything” mindset.
I was really encouraged and refreshed to hear Steven Starr of Revver speak at Vloggercon, and to hear how mindful they are of intellectual property.
It’s actually pretty trivial to download the source FLV files from YouTube. If you use a Mac, Safari makes it easiest:
1. Load a YouTube page
2. Go to Window -> Activity
3. Look through the list of files for something like:
http://sjl-v3.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=E4fjsHz4e
4. Copy the URL, paste in the address bar to download
Firefox has a Live Headers extension that is a little clumsier, but essentially provides access to the same information about what files were used to construct a given page.
It’s certainly not as easy as QuickTime’s “Save as Source” feature, but at least you don’t have to shell out 30 bucks.
Dan,
Thanks for the pointer to the download utilitiy. I was considering the issue on more of a licensing and rights issue, but its always good to know you can get at the raw bits regardless. However, you never know - perhaps in the future Flash video will incorporate a DRM system that only enables playback to work if its streaming from a YouTube.com server?
I know that hackers can always get around anything, but the question is should they have to? Why can’t YouTube provide access to the media permalink the way that Blip does (http://blip.tv)
Hmm, it is a worry. But of course the YouTube or Yahoo! Video T&Cs apply to the content uploader, not necessarily the content creator/owner. T&Cs or no T&Cs, the uploading of Lazy Sunday by multiple third parties did not grant YouTube any rights to create derivative works from that clip.
As a content creator who wants to dip their toe into YouTube without signing their content away, the obvious answer is to have a third-party upload the content. The onus would then be on YouTube to prove that that third-party was acting with the creator’s permission, which might well be very difficult indeed!
sdsdsd
Ha! I just noticed this post… I spotted the same thing and had the same gut reaction. Blogged about it also.
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