And The Banned Played On
It has happened again.
YouTube has censored another one of my videos. Nope, not another Scooter or Snowy Sunday video. This time is was concert footage from a show I went to this year.
Back in September, I went to see The Psychedelic Furs live here in Salt Lake at a small club. Even got to meet them afterwards, which was nice. And as I normally do, I had my digital camera with me and took some photos and a short video clip.
I’ve posted clips of concert footage before from other shows and have never had any warnings or notices until now. Here’s the first notice I got in my email:
Emailed notice of copyright infringement
Clicking through to my YouTube account, I was greeted with the following notice:
I had to click the Acknowledge button to get into my account
Here’s the offending footage that YouTube removed (which I uploaded to Vimeo, hoping they won’t yank it):
Psychedelic Furs – 9/12/09 – Salt Lake City, UT from Marty Mankins on Vimeo.
Puzzled and Confused
Obviously, I’m a bit concerned as I don’t want to be have my YouTube account disabled or removed. So I decided to do a bit of research to see if there were other videos by Psychedelic Furs that were removed. Imagine my surprise to find another video of concert footage uploaded from the October NYC show, which still remains online.
What The Fuck? Why is mine taken down while this video gets to stay? Is it that the quality is better? Surely it can’t be that the video is too short, as this footage is most of the song. Mine was just a couple of minutes of the song.
And I found another one from the Philadelphia show two days before the NYC show:
Quality wise, this guys video is so-so, but yet it’s not the video that YouTube is taking issue with. It’s the music. And I really think this is coming from RIAA or the bands record label, not directly from the band, as the notice states.
I was under the impression that the copyright issue didn’t apply to concert footage that you personally shoot on your own camera. But according to YouTube’s video upload page, they now include “music concerts” as content to avoid uploading. Yet, my concert footage clips from Pearl Jam, Green Day and Depeche Mode remain on my page, with no issues or warnings.
Which is why I am further confused about what gets to stay and what gets removed on YouTube.
And which is why I will make even more efforts to further reduce what I upload to YouTube.
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About The Author
Youtube is draconian, and I’ve started using Vimeo almost exclusively as a result.
We just uploaded two vids from the TSO concert this weekend and were wondering if they will get pulled. This seems really silly.
I can’t imagine a band wanting footage of one of their shows taken down. It’s not like a fan is going to make a recording of what is likely a modest-quality YouTube recording (no offense meant … but you said it was from your camera) and say “this is good enough — no need to buy the album.”
After watching “United Breaks Guitars” I watched some more Dave Carroll/Son’s of Maxwell videos on YouTube and decided to buy a couple of their mp3s. (They didn’t get rich off me… but it was two more dollars than they had before.)
avitable – I agree with you completely. I’ve been hosting most videos on my site and on Vimeo. It’s a lot less hassle, that’s for sure.
kilax – You should be ok, but it all depends on the record company or the TV or movies studios (for video related works) and if they want to pull rank on YouTube. It is rather silly.
delmer – You make a really good point. It’s not like it’s quality stuff that can be professionally duplicated. It’s a $200 digital camera in poor lighting.
And the idea that people find something they like and then purchase it is something I’ve said for over 10 years now would be a positive if they would just embrace the new medium.
I really hope that’s not coming from the band itself as that would be a bit douchey of them. I love how Trent Reznor is handling all the NIN stuff. He’s all about open access cameras by fans. There’s even a fan produced DVD in the works of collective concert footage which I’m excited about.
kevin – I’m glad you mentioned NIN and Trent Reznor. He gets it. He knows what it’s all about. And he not only makes money at it, but has a legion of fans that he really does identify with.
FWIW, I just downloaded the fan produced video. It’s awesome. Very cool to see this.