Important Vidding Notice
Dec. 6th, 2013 03:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
attackfishAll of my vids were taken down from Vimeo for being a violation of copyright, with the stated reason as "Vimeo does not allow TV shows, movie trailers, or stuff you found on the web." As such, until further notice, my vids are down, and people who host their vids on Vimeo might want to watch out. I responded, as the email notice of take down stated I was allowed to, with the following:
My vids were not full episodes, trailers (fanmade or otherwise), or any other form of illegal piracy. They were vids, and as such are considered to be fair use transformative works. They are a critical engagement with the source material, in this case, Avatar: the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. I use them to point out and highlight things about the source material that I like, that I consider problematic, or that I don't think other fans have noticed. For example, in "Azula's Jar of Hearts", I argue that one character, Ty Lee was in an abusive relationship with another character, Azula, and what some fans see as Ty Lee betraying Azula is in fact Ty Lee standing up to her abuser. In "Learn to be Still Korra", I argue that Korra did not learn the lessons in the first season of Legend of Korra that I thought she should have, and that I found her character arc unsatisfying.
Vidding as a form of fair use has been recognized in the United States in a statement by the Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, on July 26, 2010, ( http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2010/Librarian-of-Congress-1201-Statement.html )in which he said that there were certain classes of works in which it was legal to break DVD description to create, one of which was:
"Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following instances:
"(i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;
"(ii) Documentary filmmaking;
"(iii) Noncommercial videos"
Vidding falls specifically under the third example, and I have already explained how I use the short clips "for the purpose of criticism or comment".
Having read your guidelines, since my works are vids, and not a straight up rip of a TV show, and the clips within them are rearranged, edited, and cut to tell a new story with a new narrative, they do not violate your guidelines, US copyright law, or current international copyright law. Also, your site has already carved out an exception for "Machinima videos with a story" as long as they are labeled as such. Vids are equally a creative fannish endeavor, that use images from a source material in a similar way, and in my view, should be afforded a similar exception.
Please consider returning my vids to your site, or amending your guidelines to make it clear that vids and transformative works like them are not allowed.
Thank you,
Attackfish.
My vids were not full episodes, trailers (fanmade or otherwise), or any other form of illegal piracy. They were vids, and as such are considered to be fair use transformative works. They are a critical engagement with the source material, in this case, Avatar: the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. I use them to point out and highlight things about the source material that I like, that I consider problematic, or that I don't think other fans have noticed. For example, in "Azula's Jar of Hearts", I argue that one character, Ty Lee was in an abusive relationship with another character, Azula, and what some fans see as Ty Lee betraying Azula is in fact Ty Lee standing up to her abuser. In "Learn to be Still Korra", I argue that Korra did not learn the lessons in the first season of Legend of Korra that I thought she should have, and that I found her character arc unsatisfying.
Vidding as a form of fair use has been recognized in the United States in a statement by the Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, on July 26, 2010, ( http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2010/Librarian-of-Congress-1201-Statement.html )in which he said that there were certain classes of works in which it was legal to break DVD description to create, one of which was:
"Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following instances:
"(i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;
"(ii) Documentary filmmaking;
"(iii) Noncommercial videos"
Vidding falls specifically under the third example, and I have already explained how I use the short clips "for the purpose of criticism or comment".
Having read your guidelines, since my works are vids, and not a straight up rip of a TV show, and the clips within them are rearranged, edited, and cut to tell a new story with a new narrative, they do not violate your guidelines, US copyright law, or current international copyright law. Also, your site has already carved out an exception for "Machinima videos with a story" as long as they are labeled as such. Vids are equally a creative fannish endeavor, that use images from a source material in a similar way, and in my view, should be afforded a similar exception.
Please consider returning my vids to your site, or amending your guidelines to make it clear that vids and transformative works like them are not allowed.
Thank you,
Attackfish.
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no subject
Date: 2013-12-07 12:49 am (UTC)Also, "Azula's jar of Hearts" sounds interesting. I hope you reupload it when you get a chance...
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Date: 2013-12-07 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 05:17 am (UTC)ETA: You have to ask them to delete something. Apparently that feature got deleted in the last update and they're working on restoring it.
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Date: 2013-12-08 05:18 am (UTC)http://attackfish.livejournal.com/127230.html
no subject
Date: 2013-12-07 05:50 pm (UTC)By the way, is there a particular reason you use Vimeo rather than YouTube? Not like "OMG you should totally use YouTube," just honestly curious.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-07 08:27 pm (UTC)Youtube wants you to have a Google account, and Google has done some iffy things with user information in the past, and as someone who has had stalking issues, the privacy of my personal information is a really big deal.