Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion FoLC Productions Video Clips

Hi guys

Quick question...does anyone know where I can get or otherwise download video clips? Any season or episodes will do really. I don't have any currently for L&C but I wanted to be able to make music videos. Unfortunanely most of the sites that I remembered hosted them are shut down, and many of my tapes are missing

Can any one help?

Sorry, Steph, don't know of any sites offhand that have clips on them.

I suppose you could harvest individual clips from music vids already posted here. If I can harvest music tracks from the Stargate vids I have on my hd using MM2 - just using the music without the accompanying clips - I assume that it must be possible to do the same with clips. And there are certainly enough vids and trailers that you would have a fair pool of clips to choose from. Not ideal, maybe, but a start, perhaps.

But I'm not an expert on MM2, so maybe not.

Anyone?

LabRat

Under "otherwise get," there's the Season One DVD box set, currently available at Amazon.com and other fine video retailers.

Paul

thanks guys...I bought S1 the day it came out I was so excited to finally see it on DVD. It was about time!!! And I too was thinking that I could harvest them from the many fine music vids that I've downloaded and enjoyed over the years. I was just worried that some authors would be upset if I took their clips. I guess I'll have to ask them directly.

Thanks Again!

Oh, no need to concern yourself with that, Steph.

Those who have already posted music vids have no more claim or copyright on the individual LNC clips they've used than anyone else. Any more than they would on songs dl from the internet or harvested from their CD collection - unless it was a piece of music they'd personally composed.

So, in that sense there's no problem - they're fair game and up for grabs. No need to ask anyone's permission if all you're doing is taking individual clips out of a sequence of clips.

The only bar would be if it's technologically possible, really.

LabRat

I beg to differ about the vid clips, Labby.

While its true that vidders have no copyright claim to the clips themselves, its generally accepted in the vidding community that it's not at all okay to take clips from others vids and use them in your own. Most vidders take a lot of time and energy to capture, download, and/or format the clips they use, not to mention add numerous effects. By the time you see the clip in the vid, it's usually been altered in at least one form or another. That alteration is an art form, and it's the art that vidders don't want stolen.

However, the vast majority of FoLCs are incredibly sweet people and probably wouldn't mind at all if you used clips from their videos. I'd advise that you ask the vidder before using clips from their videos.

~Anna

thanks for the advice guys

I'm sorry to hear that, Anna. It seems a rather unreasonable stricture. That's like saying authors have copyright over the characters of LNC because they spend a huge amount of time on writing a story. We all put our heart and soul and time and energy into our projects, be they writing or music vids or whatever. Music vid makers are no different to the rest of us in that sense. But that doesn't entitle us to claim sole ownership of the core material we use.

So dl and finding clips wouldn't be something that would equate to having ownership of clips, as far as I'm concerned. To me, that's just like an author spending time researching facts on the web as they write. It's simply part of the process. Not something we use to justify a claim of ownership on something we have no copyright to.

Reworking clips is another kettle of fish though. Obviously, I wouldn't expect anyone to take a radically reworked individual clip from a music video. And this category of clips wasn't the subject of my previous post. I should, perhaps, have made that distinction clearer, but to be honest it didn't occur to me that anyone would equate original, individual clips with reworked clips. It just struck me as obvious that you don't take reworked clips from a vid.

Anyway, that, I would equate to someone using Author A's original characters in their own story without permission. A definite no no, I'd agree.

However, unworked individual clips are in my view the property of no one and it seems perfectly reasonable to me that someone can harvest them.

And as far as I'm aware the music videos in this fandom fall quite often into the latter category. At least in the vids I've viewed there seems to be a wealth of clips that retain their original, unworked status.

So I would suggest that it's not so much 'usually' reworked as 'sometimes' reworked. And that perhaps the vidding community might like to make that distinction in the pursuit of fairness. I've been involved in fandoms for 3 decades now and it's always been considered pretty bad form for fans to deny other fans the use of commonly available core material because they claim ownership of it when they have been granted no copyright on it.

But maybe I'm just old-fashioned and the net has eroded these practices just as in other things.

LabRat

That's exactly my point, Labby. Vidders (sane ones, at least ) don't make claim to the raw material, they are claiming the art.

To continue the fanfic comparison, if an author wrote a sentance in a fanfic, she would expect that no one would lift the sentance and use it in their own fic. The author isn't claiming ownership of the characters, or the words, or the grammer rules that were used to create the sentance, she's claiming ownership to the time, effort, creativity, research, etc. that it took to put all of those things together.

The same is true for a vidder. No claim is made to the characters, the film, the concept of a fade, etc. The claim is made to the time, effort, creativity, and research (clip finding) it took to put them all together.

What most vid watchers don't know is which clips have actually been reworked in some form or another. Sometimes it's obvious by the color or transitions, but sometimes clips have been slowed down, sped up, or recut, and it's not always obvious which clips have had something changed.

This is why it's generally accepted that anyone wanting to use the clips in their vids ask the vidder before doing so. It's the difference between "borrowing" and "stealing." It's just common curtesy to ask.

One of the biggest reasons for asking is that many vidders want the person to credit them in exchange for the use of the clips. This is partially for just pure recognition of work that is not your own, but it's also a form of advertising so that others who see the vid will know that the credited vidder would probably be willing to help them out with clip use too.

There are some vidders out there who, imho, are mean and don't ever let anyone use their clips. :p To me, that goes too far. I'm all about sharing the clips, usually because I'm selfish and I want to see the vid they're going to make. *g*

FoLCs are generally a generous bunch, and I'd be surprised to find someone like that here. Just the same, I didn't want new vidders to get the idea that they could just go through others' vids and take what they want, never knowing if what they were using was truely raw footage, or if the vidder would mind them using it. Especially considering that there are those vidders in other fandoms who would be extremely angry if someone did that to them.

So to save anyone the headache, just be aware of whose clips you're using, and make sure it's okay.

~Anna

I get my Lois & Clark episodes from e-mule.

I don't mind if people use my clips what would bother me is if for example someone took the clip in I've had the time of my life toward the end where I've blended them together and put fades and transitions in. Because I made that effect. I think that if it's any other clip it's fine. When making videos you should have the creativity to make blends and transition yourself not take someone elses. I hope you understand what I'm saying. Other then that if you want to use my video clips knock yourself out. Just don't use whole effects and such and claim them as your own.
JEn

If you have EMule, or EDonkey, or something like that, you can go on the website
www.the-realworld.de
They're propose the links to download all the episodes of the show, on many languages, and many others show too

Thank you everyone for all your input/advice. I myself would never presume to take another vidders clips without asking them first. And I tend to agree that more often than not it is obvious what clips have been altered. In that sense I would never re-edit another vidders already edited clips. In any case, I really appreciate everyone's input and I will definitely heed your advice.

Oh, and thanks to those of you who offered to let me "harvest" clips from your vids. If I do decide to collect clips that way I will be contacting you to ask your permission of course

Oh, and I must say...there are some truly talented vidders in this forum. It has been a real pleasure watching all the great L&C vids posted here and on the FoLC Video website. I myself consider this an artform unlike any other.

Talk to you all soon
Steph

While I don't claim ownership of the episodes, it really needs to be understood how much time goes into capturing clips from tapes, then maybe you can see how aggravating it is when someone just wants to come along and snag it.

When I cap the show for videos, first I have to get out my tapes. I have tried very hard to keep my original ABC copies in good condition, and only use them for vidding. This means these tapes have to be accessible to me, so they take up a good deal of space in my room, plus there are dozens of them, so finding the right tape, then finding the right scene & scanning to that point in the tape is the first step. Next I have to open my cap program & hook up my video capture device. In the program itself, I must first go through the act of capturing; once that's finished, I trim it to the length I want and delete anything that's left over (to save harddrive space). This isn't even including the time it takes to decide WHAT clips I want to go in a video (though I realize all vidders have to go through THAT step.) By the time I actually START piecing a video together, I've already spent 5, 6 hours on the project or more. Not to mention, rendering of clips can take hours... and then there's the trimming (if necessary) and the uploading...

So to have someone come along, view a video, say "hey, that scene from the Prankster, I want that in my video... *snatch*" just kind of irks me.

Not to mention, my tapes cost money, my video capture device & editing program cost money....

It would be like if I ran a L&C website, found a really great rare 8x10 of Dean Cain on ebay, bought it, had it sent to me, scanned it, uploaded it, and put it on my page, only to have FOLCs download it and start using it to make LiveJournal icons, or even using it on their own websites. No, I'm not Dean Cain, no I'm not the photographer... but I did have to do the legwork, and that should be respected or at least appreciated. No, not saying you have to be all I'm just saying... well if I did all that hard work to make MY project, why can't you?


Edit: Steph, I think it's great that you're asking people, and if people don't mind then hey, great. I guess everyone'll have a different take on this.

Of course you put a lot of hard work and effort into your vids, Mols. And of course it's an expensive hobby. But that's something you choose to do and money you choose to pay. Just because you work hard on something that's important to you and it costs you time and money, doesn't mean you can claim ownership of something that you have no claim on or entitlement to.

As you say, we can all have differing opinions on this - but the facts cannot be altered. You cannot claim you have an exclusive right to something you don't hold copyright on. You use them just as everyone else does - aware that you're borrowing someone else's property. And if you are borrowing then you really can't expect that anyone else won't or deny them the ability to do precisely what you are doing.

What the vidding community seems to be saying here is that they are perfectly entitled to borrow original clips from the copyright holders without their permission but they're going to get danged annoyed if anyone else does the same thing to them. IOW, they have a right to circumvent the copyright holders' rights, but their rights should be inviolate. Which is somewhat ironic really. Especially when you consider how much weaker ground the vidders are on with their 'rights' than the ones who actually do have a claim on the property.

After catching up on the music vids posted here over the past few days, I'm even more convinced that there's a wealth of clips used in them that are original, core clips from the show, which have not been reworked or retouched or altered in any fashion, but simply used as they are. And those clips belong to no one and everyone. The only people who can claim copyright on them are the copyright holders.

Anyone else who has an expectation that no one else should use them or that someone should ask their permission to use them is breaching copyright holders' rights and should be very careful. Lest some lawyer suddenly thinks to wonder why they are claiming ownership of something they don't own and mails them to ask.

By having that expectation that someone must ask for permission to use original, unworked clips, or even by being irked when they do without asking permission, vidders are, in essence, implying that they own these clips. Otherwise, if they didn't feel some proprietory claim, why would it bother them or why would they believe they have the right to grant permission to someone else for their use? They wouldn't. If they didn't think they had a claim on such clips, it wouldn't bother them one jot.

Of course, if someone wants to go that extra mile in the pursuit of courtesy and emails a vidder to ask permission to use original clips, well that's their choice and I don't have a problem with that. However, I'd view that as a formality and a personal choice, not a requirement. And I certainly won't expect the vidder to assume they have any right whatsoever to withhold their blessing.

It's taking away that choice that bothers me. Making asking permission compulsory and the expected thing. The rules of the vidding community. Because that's going beyond the bounds of what's legal and fair imo.

Do vidders email the copyright holders of original clips and ask their permission to use them? Do they steadfastly not use them if such permission from the clips' owners is denied? Of course not. So why then do they feel they have the right to demand these things of other vidders?

That's basically what it boils down to for me. The sheer hypocrisy of people borrowing things they don't own without asking permission of the owners and then expecting others to ask their permission to do the same thing. No, not even the same thing, a lesser thing, since the vidders don't have any copyright. Perhaps, sometimes, we all need to remember that we're playing with someone else's toys here and that we have no right to deny others the opportunity to play with them too.

Anna, I take your points and I see that we're basically saying the same thing. Again, I'd reiterate that reworked clips are not the same thing as original unworked clips and the former should never be harvested without asking permission of the vidder who took time to build on the original image, alter it, and basically rework it into a new form.

Not exactly, Anna. What the author is claiming rights to is precisely what the vidder is - the reworking of the original core material into a new form, original to them. They aren't claiming rights to the time or effort taken to do that. Or to the research or the fact that they had to spend money on buying a pc to be able to do that.

What they're claiming rights to is the art form in putting the words together in a specific way that recreates, or reshapes the characters (the core material). So I'm afraid this analogy doesn't fly for me.

I really don't think it's that difficult to spot the difference in most instances. It's easy enough to tell when an effect has been added - fade, slomo, speeding up - let's face it, you really can't miss those. Of course if someone isn't entirely 100% sure whether a clip is original or altered they should double check with the maker of the vid and if it's an altered clip, leave it alone. Or put in the time to check it yourself, if you have the episodes. Telling a clip that's been snipped is easy if you compare the clip from the vid source with the scene from the episode. If the two match precisely then it's an original not a reworked clip. So really, in most cases, I'd contend it's not rocket science to spot which is which. And not difficult to tell them apart if you research them thoroughly, as you should, before using them.

Again, this is imo an unreasonable expectation. That, in order for someone to be 'allowed' to use original unworked clips that someone else has used before them, they must bargain for a permission that is not a right of the vidder to grant them. Requiring that someone credits them for the permission to use these original clips, again implies that they own them. They really have no right making such a demand unless they are the copyright holder.

Now, if someone wants to credit them on their own behalf, again, that's a personal choice, rather sweet, and good for them. But to demand it, make it a rule of the community, is bad form imo.

LabRat

[BTW, just as a curious aside - how can you tell what the source of an original, unworked clip was to get annoyed about being stolen from? The very point is that it's an original, unworked clip. There's no way to tell where it came from, unless the vidder says so on the vid, surely? Mols, are you referring in your post to reworked clips? I guess you must be, since those are the only ones you'd be able to recognise as having been previously used in one of your vids. If so, then we're talking about two different things. ]

Sounds a lot like an issue of plagiarism to me. Let me see if I have this straight:

--capturing and re-using an original-source clip in a new way is like two different authors re-writing the same episode. There will be many similarities, but it's no problem, no one needs to ask anyone's permission. We're all working from the same source material.

--capturing and re-using a re-worked clip is like "lifting" paragraphs from one story and using them somewhere else, claiming them as your own. I'd certainly be annoyed, at least, if someone was lifting paragraphs from me -- that's not original source material.

Legally, of course, none of us have any claim on this stuff. But when one puts a lot of effort into crafting something *just* so, and then someone else makes off with it and takes credit for the work... that's really really annoying.

Mols, I see your point, too -- you're fortunate/motivated enough to have all that equipment and all those tapes, and it does take some work to get things into usable shape. But once you've captured and used a certain clip for your project, it's surely no skin off your nose if someone else (who probably hasn't got your resources) re-uses sections that are, after all, original source material. I'm not talking stuff with effects, transitions, etc, but just, say, a three-second visual from an episode. They're not putting you to any extra work, and they're not claiming credit for that visual, since everyone knows where it originally came from.

I am always in favor of asking and/or acknowledging inspiration. To me, it's all about not taking credit for someone else's hard work. When someone watches one of my videos, they know that the clips are from various episodes; I'm not claiming I made them myself. But I do claim the work put into picking the clips, putting them into a certain sequence, arranging transitions, adjusting to the music, etc. That's the stuff I would get territorial over.

I hope some of that made sense; I'm not sure anymore

PJ

Pam, I know this wasn't at all what you meant by the above, but reading it made me realise something that I hadn't perhaps made clear in my own previous posts and I felt I should clarify it in case there was any misunderstanding. So thanks for the prompt.

Whereas, imo, original, unworked clips are the property of no one and everyone, and any vidder should legitimately be able to harvest them, I would not consider that lifting a whole sequence of clips from someone's video would be legitimate.

When I used the term 'original, unworked clips' and suchlike in my posts I was referring only to individual clips.

I would certainly consider that a sequence or run of clips together would definitely come under the umbrella of reworked clips - even if all of them are original, core clips that haven't been altered in any fashion - because the vidder has taken some degree of inspiration and talent to use just that precise, perhaps unique, run of three or four or whatever clips in just that particular way.

So harvesting a sequence of more than one clip together and then using that sequence unchanged in your own vid would be a definite no no in my book.

LabRat

One point I haven't seen mentioned -- and this is something that probably only those who have actually *made* videos realize -- is that lifting clips from someone else's video tends to be pretty unhelpful. A good video maker edits their clips to the fraction of a second to make it match the music; you can't just pull a 2.7 second clip from one video and expect that you'll be able to fit it into a 2.7 second spot on your own video. Yes, you might be able to edit it into a 1.4 second spot on your own video by cutting it down, but the chances of being able to edit it into exactly the clip you need is a lot less likely than non-vidders realizes. What is valuable to vidders is the *full* clip -- that 20 second or more long section of source material that you can then edit several different ways until you get exactly the mini-clip you need to fit that particular video.

Granted, I haven't made any L&C videos, but I have made them for other shows, and ... yeah, I'd probably be a little ticked if someone took my videos apart, rearranged them, and called them "completely original". I think until people actually make videos themselves, they have no idea how much work goes into them.

Now would I even know if someone did take my video apart and used a few of the more common clips in a new video? Probably not ... and I think it's safe to say that I wouldn't mind if someone did it for just one or two clips. But I think Anna's point is a good one -- it's just not considered the polite/proper thing to do in the vidding community (a community in which L&C videos are such a small part as to be off the radar).

No, the parallels to fanfic aren't exact, but I think it's important to respect the fact that the vidding community has "psychological ownership" of their products in the same way that non-fanfic writers need to respect that the fanfic community has "pyschological ownership" of theirs. I'm sure there are non-fanfic people who would say "oh, what's the big deal? So someone borrowed the same exact plot ... they used mostly different words." But those of us who are fanfic writers would have a very different opinion on the subject.

Kathy

I'm jumping in here because this is rather interesting.

I think I understand what Lab is saying - that for Person A to complain that Person B lifted a clip from Person A's video for use in Person B's video is hypocrisy, because after all, Person A lifted clips from the original raw source in the first place. Kind of like the bank robber complaining about the pick pocket.

To a certain degree, I agree. It is kind of silly for a copyright violator (which is what all of vid makers are, technically) to complain about piracy of their own stuff. How dare we get indignant about acts that we ourselves have engaged in openly?

However, I'm not sure if Lab is refering to the same situation that annoys vid makers as Anna is and that most vid makers consider a real verbotin activity.

Let's say I need a clip of Clark looking at a photo of Lois for my video. I locate the correct episode, download the bit of video that I might want, then spend time fine-tuning my clip. I trim from this end and that end, I speed it up a bit, I add some effects. In the end, I end up with a cool clip of Clark looking at Lois's picture that fits in my video.

I've taken the original material and crafted it using my own imagination and originality. I don't own that clip, but I do feel ownership towards the altered version I have created.

Now, if I happened upon another video where the exact same clip I had created - timing, effects, everything - showed up, I'd be very annoyed.

I'm not saying that someone else can't find a clip of Clark looking at Lois's picture - perhaps even the very exact same clip because let's face it, the supply is limited - trim and manipulate it and do whatever they want to it then use it in their own video. They most certainly are entitled to use that clip in their own creation.

What is annoying is if they didn't take their own time and put in their own effort and creativity to make their own clip but "stole" the work that I did by using my clip. They pulled up my video into their program, copied my clip, then pasted it directly into their own video. Like Kathy said, nine times out of ten this probably wouldn't even work because the timing has to be so precise. But even so, it's rude beyond rude.

I mean, technically I could make entire videos by borrowing clips created for use in everyone else's videos. Sure, I might be original in my music choice and my sequencing. But I can expect to have a whole lot of vid makers really angry at me, and IMO, rightly so.

Yeah, Lab has a great point. And technically, she's right. But like so many unwritten rules in our society, clip snatching is really uncool and certainly won't make you any friends.

Kind of like the unwritten rule that a writer will try not to use a title for his/her story that has already been used. Not that the first writer owns the title, but it is common courtesy to try to avoid it if at all possible.

I guess even in the world of copyright violators and character thieves, we have a code of good conduct.

Lynn

I've been reading this thread with increasing bemusement.

From what I can see, everyone agrees on one point: that to take altered clips, or a compiled sequence of clips, from someone else's video or trailer is wrong. No-one's arguing otherwise - Lynn, if you read the posts before yours, you'll see that everyone agrees with you.

Is this about using unaltered clips?

I make videos and trailers. I'm very lucky in that a generous friend gave me .avi copies of all the episodes on DVD. If I want a particular clip, I don't have to go searching through download sites; I don't have to run my tapes through a capture machine; I don't have to beg friends to make me a clip. I just copy the episode to my hard drive, import it into WMM and I'm ready to go.

But not all videomakers are that fortunate. So - while I take your point, Kathy, about clips being trimmed precisely for their purpose - if a four-second unaltered clip in one of my videos or trailers happens to be exactly the clip someone else, who doesn't have easy access to the source material, needs for their video, then why shouldn't they use it? I have no problem with it. It's as if I've put a photograph on my website, a photo I got from somewhere else (maybe an official WB site or maybe someone else's website) and another FoLC wants to copy and use that photo for their own purposes. I don't have the rights to that photo. I've done nothing to it to change it or enhance it in any way. Now, if I had manipulated it in some way, that would be different and I'd like to be asked first before someone used it.

I'm not part of the 'wider vidding community'; the only videomakers I've talked to are those making Lois and Clark videos and trailers. So this is the first time I've been exposed to this sort of debate. I'm sure some videomakers do feel very strongly about it, as is obvious from a couple of the posts here. But if all we're talking about is is it okay to use unaltered clips from someone else's video, then, honestly, why not? I would never even know if an unaltered clip of Perry interviewing Clark came from, say, my Perry video or from a download site or from somewhere else. Nor would I care. Nor would I have a right to care, in my opinion.

To return to the fanfic analogy, I see the use of unaltered clips to be the same as using dialogue direct from the series in a fanfic.We do that sometimes. If I have Lois say to Clark, "Don't fall for me, Farmboy," or I type out the whole of Jor-El's message to Clark, do I have a right to say that someone shouldn't copy that dialogue direct from my story rather than transcribing it from their tape/DVD of the episode? Sure, it's a short cut, while I had to do the work of finding the dialogue I needed and retyping it. But it's not my dialogue. I didn't alter it in any way. I didn't add anything or edit it. I didn't add any narrative to it. It's exactly as it was in the episode. Just the same as a single unaltered clip of video is.

(And I'd no more expect someone to write and ask me if they could take the unaltered clip of Perry interviewing Clark from my video than I'd expect them to ask if they could copy and paste the piece of dialogue that I'd transcribed direct from the episode. If someone, out of courtesy, prefers to ask first then that's fine - but it's their choice, not mine. At least, that's how I see it.)

So, to return to my bemusement, are we really having an argument about the possible use of unaltered clips? Really??


Wendy