Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Catherine's Ice Skating Video


Unbelievable how long it took to get this uploaded. YouTube kept erasing the audio tracks because I was using songs apparently that are naughty to use without permission (I had been using a couple of Frank Sinatra songs previously). I mean it's not like I'm making any money from these videos, so I don't quite see the issue. Yes, I realize it's content someone else created, but I'm not reselling it, so they aren't losing money because of me (at least I don't think they are). If no one is allowed to add songs to home movie soundtracks then I can't see how anyone is ever going to have movies that are watchable by anyone other than family.

So after more than eight reworks and probably twice as many uploads I can finally show the video of Catherine's first time ice skating. All video was shot by Ginger (since I was home watching Quinn who was still sick at that point). I take full responsibility for the editing though. It's long. Over five minutes in fact. So if you don't want to see the beginning stuff where I show video of how well she's doing I completely understand. So for those people not interested in that (John, I'm talking to you) just skip to three minutes and four seconds, that's where it starts getting entertaining for everyone else. If you do watch the first part, do take note this was her first time on the ice. I don't think I could have expected her to do much better considering she seemed to somewhat master pushing off and even turning (although there was still quite a lot of flailing arms to maintain balance). And snow pants! I forgot to mention snow pants. I can't emphasize how important it is if you're taking young kids ice skating for the first time (or you think they'll fall down much at all) that you need to have them in snow pants. Otherwise they'll just be miserable.

Ugh, the video looks terrible without looking at the high def version. I suggest going to it on youtube and hitting the high def link. As always, feel free to let me know what you think of the video. And if it suddenly has no audio, someone let me know that too (because it'll probably happen).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have every right to use other artists' songs. It's called fair use and it's a part of Copyright law.

However, they have every right to delete your data since you're putting it on their site.

Your only real option is to "shop" elsewhere. Of course, you could sue but let's be real, you don't have more money than the music industry so you aren't likely to win.

JamesF said...

I was afraid it was something like that. I looked for other sites, but youtube is the only one at the moment I could find that's free that unlimited storage.

So did you notice Autumn has tons of cameos in the video? In fact I don't think I ever saw her fall down (at least not in any of the video Ginger took).

wtfree3 said...

Fair use does not allow you to use artists' songs if they are still under copyright (generally 75 years). And rearrangements of older songs often gain protection for those specific performances.

For James's purposes, he was probably not on the right side of the law. The two general areas where you might be able to sit safely, if in any sort of public setting (even YouTube), is 1) for parody, or 2) taking short bits for commentary or critique. A quick summary can be found here, though even they admit the rules just aren't hard and settled.

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html

Have you looked at Viddler at all? Not sure how they get scanned for audio blurbs.

dashrb said...

I've been meaning to do more research and come back to this issue, WRT "fair use" when you use music as a background to reinforce the message you're trying to send with the privately recorded video. The music isn't the "main attraction", and the purpose of your youtube video is not to showcase the song. The purpose is to showcase your kids; when you "redistribute" the copy of the music, you are transforming the music's message to apply to what your children are humorously doing in the video. "Your children" are not what the artist intended to highlight when they recorded the song.

Obviously Stanford is a highly respected source of IP law interpretation, and I'll add some EFF references (also respectable). Of course, lawyer opinion isn't authoritative; only the court opinions matter, practically speaking. I certainly agree with you that the rules aren't hard and settled. *sigh*

videos of babies lip-syncing to songs, to quote: "these are transformative, noncommercial videos that are not substitutes for the original songs, and there is no plausible market for "licensing" parents before they video their own children singing"

How to reverse a youtube takedown (and counter-attack the music industry, if you have the cojones!)

And finally, from the respected "regular techie" Jason Perlow (not a lawyer), his takedown story.