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DEL.ICIO.USViral video: Who owns it?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s a logical question to ask after the earlier post about video sites and whether they can make enough money to survive. What about the budding number of amateur — and professional — videographers whose works are getting massive exposure on You Tube and other viral video sites? Sure, they get a lot of attention, but where’s the money for them?
Since the previous post, the blogosphere has been abuzz with articles and discussion on the subject. Heather Green of Business Week gets to the crux of the issue, which moved front and center when Robert Tur, an independent photographer famous for filming the 1992 Los Angeles riots, recently sued YouTube for alleged copyright infringement. Writes Green:
“The dustup spotlights the role the Internet increasingly is playing in letting artists and other individuals reach out and control media. But more to the point, it shows how YouTube is evolving into a sort of eBay for video: the first place you go to find a clip, but also a place where more folks are itching to get rewarded for supplying it. A growing group of creative types is furiously producing clips, video blogs, and animated shorts with the hopes of making money through advertising or selling DVDs.”
Some of those creative types are avoiding YouTube because there is no share of the ad dollars. “The exposure is great, but with all the copyright issues and the lack of potential ad revenues, it seems like something that we’re not going to get into right now,” one popular animator told Green.
Millions of video creators will be watching what happens with the Tur case.
Meanwhile, this won’t make anyone rich, but it sure is cool. Grouper, another user-submitted video site, has added some great features. Don’t like a video clip? Users can post video comments on a clip using their Webcams. There’s also sharing functionality at the bottom of their embedded video player which seamlessly allows users to download to their desktop, iPod or PSP. Or they can add it to their page or blog with one click.
When sharing video becomes this simple, who knows what this ultimately will mean for copyright law and how content gets distributed.
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