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I am leaving Vimeo over their scandalous DMCA policy


Andrew Reid
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On 11/1/2018 at 9:33 PM, Andrew Reid said:

Problem is Vimeo have us by the balls and they know it. A far call from their earlier years, now they have an aggressive new CEO who wants to purge a bunch of users they 'accuse' of copyright infringement, to clear the company of any risk or legality issues in the prelude to being fattened up and sold to an even larger corporation than the one that already owns them.

It stinks.

I have never held in such low esteem a company that I depend on for so much.

We should start our own Vimeo. And keep big business away from the running of it.

 

On 11/1/2018 at 9:52 PM, Mokara said:

Simple solution to the problem is to stop stealing other people's stuff. If you are a content creator, then create your own content. Just using other peoples creations without permission is not OK, doubly so if you are outraged when others do the same to you. I seem to recall a thread here a while back bemoaning the fact that third parties were doing just that, making it hard for independent film makers to monetize their creations. How is this any different? Just because the shoe is on the other foot does not make any less of a shoe.

Andrew is spot on with his perspectives -

If it would just be 'pirates' using vimeo then 99,99% would understand and not complain about the new policy-
But I find it sad that Vimeo has given up the benefit of the doubt of its long term users and letting the vultures skinning their corpse. 

I.e. lets say you are an agent representing directors. And you i.e have been using vimeo pro since launch. One day you sign up a new director that also makes music videos for artists signed with 'the big 4' labels. He gives you a few music videos for his reel and you upload them to your vimeo account and embed them on to your webpage. All good.
Suddenly you receive an email from vimeo's legal team about a takedown notice of exactly those music videos. Strike One! Ifpi London that represents the right holders wants the videos down unless you can prove you have a explicit permission to add them to your vimeo account.
But unfortunately that email ends up in your spam folder so you have no idea.

In the mean time the director changes agent you take his reel offline and you sign up new directors. Later some also with music videos...Strike2...Strike3...

One morning a client calls you complaining why the links you send doesn't seem to work. Entering on your website all video links are dead. Your account on vimeo suddenly isn't there.
You try contacting vimeo. You are desperate. No phone numbers. nothing. just a webpage where you can fill out a form. 
Vimeo comes back to you noting that they tried contacting you but are unable to do anything to help you other than giving you 1 week to download your hundreds of videos and giving you the contact info to the right holders if you wants to try get your strike count down to '2' in order to restore your account.
Your years of trust towards a technical partner suddenly goes haywire.

Sure. Very unfortunate not to have seen the strike emails. But disconnecting your business because of a technicality. 3 to be exact. It seems like a vey dystopic future. 
Especially since your aren't new on vimeo. The years spend trusting (and paying) vimeo. Actually representing 50+ filmmakers that are part of Vimeo's the core demographic using vimeo for showing their work to agents worldwide. Spending xxxxx€  integrating vimeo even closer with your publishing tools etc. All worth nothing when somebody is knocking on the dmca door. Then your have to prove your innocence. With the right to get disconnected.
Later you spend months with letters, emails, phonecalls to get the right holders to understand that you represented or represents the guy or girl they hired to make the music video in question.
But for some reason one director wasn't credited internally as director on one clip although he developed it and produced it because he send an AD abroad for a few takes...


Well. Obviously it is not a made-up story. But the reality of a friend on mine.

I think his situation could have been less dire if he would have seen one of the strike emails. But the very limited help and understanding from vimeo is quite surprising  ( they actually mentioned that it happens to quite a few not receiving the notifications ) I find it quite distasteful that they doest at least offer a phone number to speak with a special dmca help line to give guidance. After all deactivating an account could easily mean hurting others businesses. People get shocked and stressed.

No doubt that music rights is a hotter theme than ever especially since the big record companies have regained their power and are getting comfortable in the digital world. But the world still isn't binary (yet)


 

 

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Well it is like someone already said on here. Don't steal music and you will have no problems. How hard is that. This isn't some new concept. If you have dumbass directors that falls on your shoulders doesn't it.

This is why being a business owner sucks ass, why you lay awake at nights. YOU are responsible for Everyone that works for you good or bad, now or years ago.

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23 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Well it is like someone already said on here. Don't steal music and you will have no problems. How hard is that. This isn't some new concept. If you have dumbass directors that falls on your shoulders doesn't it.

This is why being a business owner sucks ass, why you lay awake at nights. YOU are responsible for Everyone that works for you good or bad, now or years ago.

Nobody stole nothing! That was the point I was trying to make. They were the creaters ( and not dumbasses )

 

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17 minutes ago, dslnc said:

Nobody stole nothing! That was the point I was trying to make. They were the creaters ( and not dumbasses )

 

Just about everything that can be shot on video, or made into a tune has already been done by now. I am not implying it was done on purpose. But I bet even I can find a relationship to some scene or song in just about everything I see or hear. It all has been done in one form or another by now. It is the price you have to pay now to try to be creative..

It is all done by AI now and some computer located in Utah, USA could give a rats ass about you or anyone else. It is doing what it is is programed to do, and Vimeo is loving it, and so is the people that benefit from the income that computer generates.

To be honest at my age I don't listen to music or watch many movies myself because I already know the plot and the hook on the song before it hits a few minutes. Been there done that as they say. Interviews, life stories are about the only interesting thing there is. And those could go on forever and not repeat.

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43 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Just about everything that can be shot on video, or made into a tune has already been done by now. I am not implying it was done on purpose. But I bet even I can find a relationship to some scene or song in just about everything I see or hear. It all has been done in one form or another by now. It is the price you have to pay now to try to be creative..

in these cases they where official music videos paid for by the labels themselves...
With 500+ videos/films over 6 years and now suddenly the music videos gets flagged systematically...I don't have the big picture - but a few years ago youtube was in a similar situation as far a I remember.

43 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

It is all done by AI now and some computer located in Utah, USA could give a rats ass about you or anyone else. It is doing what it is is programed to do, and Vimeo is loving it, and so is the people that benefit from the income that computer generates.

so we all should alljust accept it and assimilate ? 

 

43 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Interviews, life stories are about the only interesting thing there is. And those could go on forever and not repeat.

because history never repeats ? ?

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2 hours ago, dslnc said:

 

Andrew is spot on with his perspectives -

If it would just be 'pirates' using vimeo then 99,99% would understand and not complain about the new policy-
But I find it sad that Vimeo has given up the benefit of the doubt of its long term users and letting the vultures skinning their corpse. 

I.e. lets say you are an agent representing directors. And you i.e have been using vimeo pro since launch. One day you sign up a new director that also makes music videos for artists signed with 'the big 4' labels. He gives you a few music videos for his reel and you upload them to your vimeo account and embed them on to your webpage. All good.
Suddenly you receive an email from vimeo's legal team about a takedown notice of exactly those music videos. Strike One! Ifpi London that represents the right holders wants the videos down unless you can prove you have a explicit permission to add them to your vimeo account.
But unfortunately that email ends up in your spam folder so you have no idea.

In the mean time the director changes agent you take his reel offline and you sign up new directors. Later some also with music videos...Strike2...Strike3...

One morning a client calls you complaining why the links you send doesn't seem to work. Entering on your website all video links are dead. Your account on vimeo suddenly isn't there.
You try contacting vimeo. You are desperate. No phone numbers. nothing. just a webpage where you can fill out a form. 
Vimeo comes back to you noting that they tried contacting you but are unable to do anything to help you other than giving you 1 week to download your hundreds of videos and giving you the contact info to the right holders if you wants to try get your strike count down to '2' in order to restore your account.
Your years of trust towards a technical partner suddenly goes haywire.

Sure. Very unfortunate not to have seen the strike emails. But disconnecting your business because of a technicality. 3 to be exact. It seems like a vey dystopic future. 
Especially since your aren't new on vimeo. The years spend trusting (and paying) vimeo. Actually representing 50+ filmmakers that are part of Vimeo's the core demographic using vimeo for showing their work to agents worldwide. Spending xxxxx€  integrating vimeo even closer with your publishing tools etc. All worth nothing when somebody is knocking on the dmca door. Then your have to prove your innocence. With the right to get disconnected.
Later you spend months with letters, emails, phonecalls to get the right holders to understand that you represented or represents the guy or girl they hired to make the music video in question.
But for some reason one director wasn't credited internally as director on one clip although he developed it and produced it because he send an AD abroad for a few takes...


Well. Obviously it is not a made-up story. But the reality of a friend on mine.

I think his situation could have been less dire if he would have seen one of the strike emails. But the very limited help and understanding from vimeo is quite surprising  ( they actually mentioned that it happens to quite a few not receiving the notifications ) I find it quite distasteful that they doest at least offer a phone number to speak with a special dmca help line to give guidance. After all deactivating an account could easily mean hurting others businesses. People get shocked and stressed.

No doubt that music rights is a hotter theme than ever especially since the big record companies have regained their power and are getting comfortable in the digital world. But the world still isn't binary (yet)


 

 

Well, what you are describing is using other people's work to promote your business or public interests, the fact that there is an intermediate guy (the director) does not make it ok. He does not have the right to assign the content over to you, only the original music creator does, and he/she does not know you from a bar of soap. As far as the people who actually own the content are concerned, you are stealing their stuff and they are 100% correct.

Having a third party as an intermediate does not absolve you of responsibility. In the scenario you described the director basically has a license to use the content to promote their work, but they do NOT have the right to sublicense that work to a third party without express written permission of the original owner. It is the same thing as buying a song from a download service. What you buy is not the song but a license to store and play back that song for personal private use, you are not allowed to then turn around and use that bought song for commercial use or public use. For that you will need to buy a different, much more expensive license. If you use the song for anything other than personal private use then you are violating the terms of the license and are in essence stealing the work even though you bought it for use in a limited way.

That is exactly what stealing creative works is.

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29 minutes ago, Mokara said:

That is exactly what stealing creative works is.

the agent of the director is stealing using directors work handed over by the director to the agent?...well. They are definitely stealing his time.
This agent is not promoting his business he is hired by the director, creative. Author of the visual part of the music video.
I know where you are going putting things on a stick. But we are not speaking about a random person taking a random song from a random music store making a video. We are speaking about a particular case where a known agent representing a known director hired by a big label to make a music video for a known band. There are a difference. A rigid lawyer may dissagree.
Anyways it is a sensible area - music online.
But in the case I described things are moving forward albeit slow. Agent/former agent speaking with director  speaking with label speaking with rights organisation. There are no dispute between director and label. Things are sorting out moving towards  acknowledging the right of use getting the last strike removed and the account reactivated. The other two are still in process.
Obviously this agent is not a music pirate and should not be treated as such. 

 


 

 

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4 hours ago, kaylee said:

dont violate copyrights guys its very simple!!!!

dont be like this guy!!!! sure, his video hasnt been taken down IN EIGHT YEARS, but dont do this!!! iz bad!!!

 

Yeah - a clips like that  was the reason that YouTube had 25% of all music listeners online coming by. And YouTube earning money from commercials at the same time. No wonder the labels went for YouTube’s head 

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13 hours ago, Mokara said:

Having a third party as an intermediate does not absolve you of responsibility. In the scenario you described the director basically has a license to use the content to promote their work, but they do NOT have the right to sublicense that work to a third party without express written permission of the original owner.

So. Things sorted out. The reason for the strikes being that the label - one of the biggest on the planet - had an internal mixup of who directed the spot. So in about 72h he will have his vimeo account online again.
So no. the agent didn't do anything wrong or stole anything. But for music videos going forward he needs to have the director double check the credentials with the label and even written permissions just to be safe.
It is important to remember that just because you are a big company basically with license to bully it doesn't necessarily mean that you are right. And when you do mess up your lack of carefulness has consequences that hurt people.

I have no issue with bots scanning through videos to flag for potential  copyright infringers as long as it is used as an internal tool and not as a mechanism that automatically puts all the work on the 'innocent until the opposite is proven's shoulder to clear her or himself.  Making a takedown notice you have to be sure beyond doubt that you actually have a case. Maybe the (in this case US law) law says something different?

Does anybody know how explicit the paragraph in the DMCA is regarding wrongful / headless / loose blacklisting ?  - so the rights-holders need to be just as sure in their case as the accused when countering their claim ?

Oh well. stopping my mini ranting.
I still do like vimeo's service. just not this part of it.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/2/2018 at 6:35 AM, kaylee said:

ykno, not tryin speak truth to power or call out the elephant in the room but...

youtube is built on the back of © infringement

thats what makes all this so lame

its WILDLY hypocritical

and they know that

well said - yea Youtube basically rose to fame on copyright infringement.  I remember the pre-google days.  Internet getting reigned in.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...
On 10/22/2018 at 6:33 PM, Andrew Reid said:

Read the full article

The link is broken.
What's the current story with Vimeo? Are they, as I believe this thread was pointing towards, taking down content that is in violation of copyright?
If Vimeo is taking down this content, a quick search easily revealed that there is still content that is in violation. For example: 

A large body of my password protected Vimeo material contains very small amounts of content (mostly music frequencies) that I do not own or have not licenced. I'm wondering if I were to remove password, could it be identified and flagged in violation?

Is Vimeo's DMCA policy still in effect? My Vimeo subscription is up for renewal and I'm wondering what others here are doing? Anyone?

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