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.
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.
To continue the fanfic comparison, if an author wrote a sentence in a fanfic, she would expect that no one would lift the sentence 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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