Tag Archives: YouTube

copyright or copywrong

I told you I’m going through a bristly period just now.

Geez! Just when I thought the previous post took me out of that zone, I came across a blog featuring YouTube videos of Beatles songs. The person who uploaded the videos on YouTube removed instrumentals from copyrighted works, producing an a capella effect. The boys sang like angels! Who knew?

It struck me, however, as an egregious violation of copyright law, even as modified. Google (which owns YouTube) took me to task for much less. It steamed me to see these Beatle videos. I left the following comment on the post. (I don’t think he violated copyright law by posting them from YouTube, but, just in case, I won’t name him and make the Copyright Polizei’s job easier.)

[I’m not paying fines or going to jail for this video! The soundtrack is new, attached from YouTube audio files! The video is reloaded in legally correct form!]

Wow! I accidentally recorded a little vintage Louis Armstrong on three short videos of my cat, Andy, when I made videos at the same time I was listening to a favorite CD. It looked and sounded cute, so I made the mistake of posting them on YouTube, thinking I “quoted” too short a section of each song to be in violation of copyright law. In retrospect, I didn’t adequately identify the music of copyright holder or meet the standards of the Creative Commons business.

Google sent me a severe notice about killing my children, confiscating all my wealth, and tossing me in front of a truck for my terrible violation of law and google (by way of YouTube) standards.

[This video, re-edited with new music downloaded from google audio files – i.e. “legal” music – also is a trifle not worth jail time with Bubba or a huge fine.]

I barely joke here. I was genuinely shocked and worried about my legal woes-to-be. I mean, remember when they sued schoolchildren who downloaded music off the Internet?

It’s videos like these that made me think it wasn’t wrong, however. I mean, I had snippets of music; these are complete copyrighted works, even as modified. Complete movies uploaded by individuals, not the known copyright holders, also confused the issue for me. Google applies the rule and laws selectively, apparently.

I was threatened with legal action even if I removed the three videos, banishment forever from YouTube, removal from their advertising scam-cum-moneymaking program (I don’t get enough views to ever trigger payouts), and deletion of all my account.

Frankly, it pisses me to see these videos on YouTube considering what I experienced. No, it makes me want to see a lawyer!

I re-edited the offending videos, and used Kevin MacLeod music I paid for that I profusely acknowledged both at the end of the videos and in the text under the video.

[This is the third video I re-edited with new music to show my desire to comply with copyright law. Thanks for the audio file, YouTube. It isn’t Louie Armstrong but it’s, well, music!]

I didn’t have to buy the music or do much more than acknowledge [its] source, using an acknowledgement shown on MacLeod’s website, but I decided google/YouTube needed to know I absolutely had authorization to the music, which I identified by name and the catalog number MacLeod uses.

This is from the file where I set up my video and YouTube "about" text. The box appears in both, but the lightning bolt is to remind why I'm doing this.

This is from the file where I set up my video and YouTube “about” text. The box I copy on the video and the “about” text box below the video, but the lightning bolt is to remind why I’m doing this.

The irony is that my CD collection is somewhere between 5000-6000 discs, bought and paid for by me except for exactly one CD I received as a gift. I think my support of artists and the companies that produce CDs is easily established. If the average paid per CD was even $10 (it was more, of course), I have a small fortune in CDs.

Of course, since this over-kill by google, I doubt I’ll ever pay another penny for a CD produced by the copyright holder. (It isn’t the Armstrong estate, as far as I know, but Sony.)

You might want to review your liability, if any, for re-posting these videos.

Google says I am evil. Maybe I am. I definitely have an attitude - now!

Google says I am evil. Maybe I am. I definitely have an attitude – now!

I seem to have settled the problem of my videos to google’s satisfaction because advertisements now appear on my videos again, though, as noted, there is no, NO benefit to me. Even when I use google’s audio files [now], I make sure the name of the music and artist appear below the video since (for reasons obscure to me) sometimes YouTube adds these acknowledgements…, but many times it does not.

#&!^%#@$#&!^%#@$#&!^%#@$#&!^%#@$#&!^%#@$#&!^%#@$#&!^%#@$#&!^%#@$

Whew! Sometimes protection of copyrights results in something more like copywrongs. Just saying. LOL! (Just joking, google/YouTube. No, really. I wuv you! >smack~smack<)

Did I ever tell you what the late Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes said about lawyers in a trenchant saying that translates well into English? No? Well, the saying is a curse: "May you be surrounded by a hundred lawyers!" Gets my attention.

vicissitudes of cat photography

One thing about digital cameras, you make a crap photo, and all you’ve wasted are the few electrons it took to create the image on the memory card. Occasionally, though, mistakes yield a potentially “good” photo that, with a little help from Photoshop, give the false impression you know how to handle a camera to make true art!

For example:

Impressionistic, "arty" photo of Andy and Dougy in the window. OR, a failed effort to get a focused photo of Andy and Dougy in the window, heavily processed in Photoshop.

Impressionistic, “arty” photo of Andy and Dougy in the window, or a failed effort to get a focused photo of Andy and Dougy in the window, heavily processed in Photoshop.

Let’s face it, you can tell a cat, but not much! Andy looked cute in his favorite perch, but low light (flash went off each time I attempted to get a candid shot) and a wary cat from all the flashes of light in his face didn’t make for a happy subject. (Andy’s always wary, thanks to all those baths he got as a kitten.) Oh well, even a surly Andy is cute. He can’t help it!

I don't know if anyone mistakes this for "art", but this Andy portrait sure as heck took some major Photoshopping to capture his surly, little essence!

I don’t know if anyone mistakes this for “art”, but this Andy portrait sure as heck took some major Photoshopping to capture his surly, little essence!

My digital camera will select an ultra-slow “shutter” speed for flash photos in low light. Slowly…! Before the flash goes off, your cat subject usually leaves Dodge to do something else, probably naughty and much more interesting! Not for this one, though, so I have to destroy it and everyone who reads this blog to assure no one knows I ever took a bad kitty shot. Never!

Photoshop couldn't help this one of Dougy. I tried, man! I tried!

Photoshop couldn’t help this one of Dougy. I tried, man! I tried!

Another benefit of digital photography is the crap photos, once deleted, exist no more. There aren’t any negatives to betray the reality that my cat photo everyone admires is one of dozens taken that I couldn’t Photoshop into submission. I guarantee, very few of my photos are virgins.

Patience, persistence, practice, prayer, Photoshop, and a good stout pair of woven stainless steel mesh shark-resistant gloves yield great cat photos every time! If you lack any of those, however, try making videos of the little darlings. I bet I scrapped out five minutes of videos to get this one short vignette:

Notice the thumbnail photo that appears on the YouTube still is, well, pretty darn much like the first photo in this post, only I couldn’t run it through Photoshop to make it “purr-ty”!

=(^+^)= [Andy] =(^+^)= [Dougy] =(^+^)= [Andy] =(^+^)= [Dougy] =(^+^)=

[NB ~ Not unlike cat photography, this text went through 21 revisions – knock on wood! – before I called it polished enough for public viewing. Cat prose is much like cat photography: Patience, persistence, practice, prayer, proofread function, and a good stout pair of woven stainless steel mesh shark-resistant gloves yield great cat prose every time! But is it great literature? Dun-dun-dunnnn!]

=(^+^)= [Andy] =(^+^)= [Dougy] =(^+^)= [Andy] =(^+^)= [Dougy] =(^+^)=

You don’t believe me? Here’s a Screen Print of the revision record for this simple, little post. In addition to the 5 P’s for successful cat photos and videos is the “P” of perfection. Nothing’s too good for my readers! Rats! This addition makes another revision! “Argh!” as Charlie Brown used to say.

So many revisions! Can't I think straight?

So many revisions! Can’t I think straight?

Twenty-two. Rats! Not another one! Yep, twenty-three!

mumbling along

“Does anyone read this blog?” is a perennial question most bloggers ask themselves when they update their blogs. There must be hundreds of thousands of these odd snippets floating around in the ether, full of personal insights and commentary on everything under the sun. How do people connect with them?

I follow, irregularly, three very good blogs that have little in common other than the passion and technical skills of their creators. There have been others, also very good, by technically skilled, passionate creators, that I followed for a time, then stopped visiting. No reason. I just stopped stopping by.

I am not certain why these things happen, I just accept that my interests, the time involved to indulge in them, and Factors X, Y, and Z (the latter, unknown) keep me away. Out of sight, out of mind. Like my blog, which I see I last updated in March, which was a very busy four updates month.

If you adore and follow me, the long space between the last of March’s updates and this must have been sheer torture; if not, then join my billions of non-followers, blissfully unaware, possibly better people for it!

Incidentally, part of the reason I’ve been absent is I, as @phainopepla95 of dailybooth and phainopepla95 on YouTube, have been busy with other time-consuming web “stuff”, the videos below, for example.


(Without sound.)


(With sound.)

My brother is visiting from California. Yesterday, my cat Louie amused us with his quirky eating habits!

addiction

I followed a link the other day, a seriously addictive one.

DailyBooth. You hear of it? It’s sort of a Twitter, I guess, only you post a daily photo of yourself. Failure to do so results in an e-mail letting you know “it’s time to post a new photo”.

Yes! A new photo.

"Leaf me alone!"
“Leaf me alone!”

On one hand, I hate taking self portraits. Seems retarded and self-defeating for a guy so anti-photo. On the other, I have a sweet new Gravatar because I had to come up with something “fresh” to satisfy the addiction! (Look to the right- I’m wearing an orange shirt with a weggie slogan on it.)

I’ve never been a happy person in front of a camera, though I’ve often been the person behind one. Strategy, you know: Can’t be photographed (theoretically…) if you have the locked and loaded camera.

Then comes DailyBooth. And webcams!

Erm. Maybe a little preliminary build up. Zack Scott. He lives in Oklahoma, is married to Ashley, has two cats (Otto and Egon), and a tiny chihuahua that is the object of cleaning by one of the cats (Egon). Cleaning a la cat tongue.

Izzy actively seeks this service out ~ yeah.

Yeah, Izzy also likes catnip mice ~ don’t judge, don’t judge!

I’m seriously off track here. I think it is the Twitter ~ DailyBooth mind set short circuiting both my attention span and several layers of mental acuity. I mean, you know of my other addiction to Japanese cat videos. It’s documented. It’s fierce. I even have a “Favorite” link to Maru the “jump in the box” cat featured in an earlier blog. What? Oh yes! You want me to snap out of it and get to the point. If there is one for this paragraph, let alone the whole blog.

Watch this Zack Scott classic video while I try to figure out where I am!

The trail, as best I can determine, is that I followed Zack Scott on YouTube. He started a second or third channel for lighter stuff (animal videos I’m addicted to) called “Zack Scott’s Fun Club”. He set up a link to another activity on Facebook, then to PhotoBooth.

All is a blur. PhotoBooth! Staying up all night checking out who’s posted a new photo. Accumulating a few followers, finding people you want to follow! If you don’t think we are pack animals, sign up for DailyBooth.

There’s a bit of voyeurism in it. Some stalking. Leads to new masters of video, which Zack Scott is. Friendships? I hesitate to call them that, yet many people do become genuine friends through these social networking sites. A little bit creepy. Entertaining. And addictive!

(At the ends of the videos, there’s a place to subscribe to Zack Scott videos. Do it! Zack Scott establishes American cat videos as equal to all the Japanese cat videos posted on YouTube. Don’t try to fight the addiction!)