Traffic shaping on YouTube - is it happening elsewhere?

[Midzuki]

{DELETED}

P.S.: because I do not like people who think all web forums are
(or must be) similar to the talk pages of Wikipedia or to the
anime newsgroups. No, I did not read the replies to my
original post, and I won't.

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[KneeRow]

Understanding Video-Sharing Sites' Terms of Service
What to consider before you upload your video to the Web

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By: Brian Satterfield

January 25, 2007

Video-sharing sites have exploded in popularity, offering nonprofit organizations a quick and easy way to get their video content in front of millions of viewers around the world. And although most of the Web's video-sharing sites won't charge to host your nonprofit's clips, are these services truly risk-free?

For instance, once you upload your new activist video to a sharing site, do you still own the rights to it? Will the site that hosts your organization's video divulge your personal information and identity if required by law? And will creating an account at a video-sharing service lead to a deluge of spam in your inbox?

The answers to these sorts of questions can usually be found in a site's terms of service (TOS) and privacy policy, legally binding agreements that disclose a Web site or online service's ground rules. In general, TOS agreements explain what rules and standards of conduct a site's visitors must follow. When you sign up for an account at a video-sharing site, you'll usually be required to read the TOS agreement and check a box indicating your agreement with the terms before you can use the site or service.

Privacy policies generally disclose what personal data a site collects about its visitors and how it uses this information. Most of the time, you won't be required to agree to a privacy policy in order to use a site, though you can usually locate a link to this agreement near the bottom of a site's home page.

By their very nature, most TOS agreements and privacy policies are long, detailed, and full of potentially confusing legalese, making them a chore for anyone but a lawyer to wade through. And while it can be tempting to skip over a site's TOS or privacy policy, doing so means that you might miss out on important information that could affect your nonprofit's video campaign at some point in the future.

To help save you the time it takes to scour lengthy video-sharing TOS agreements and locate the important sections, we've highlighted the points that will be most relevant to nonprofits that are considering putting their videos on the Web. We'll discuss the major questions you should ask yourself before uploading a video to an online sharing site; explain how the information in TOS agreements and privacy policies can affect your nonprofit; and compare eight services in a downloadable Excel spreadsheet at the end of the article.
Eight Video-Sharing Sites Examined

Some of the video-sharing sites listed below were originally listed on an online chart published by grassroots-media nonprofit OurMedia, which we then added to and amended. Note that these sites are meant as a representative sample of the Web's offerings and are by no means your only options. If you find another video-sharing site your organization is interested in using, feel free to customize our downloadable spreadsheet by adding the information you collect.

    * Blip.tv
      Blip.tv focuses heavily on serialized video blogs, though it will allow users to upload single clips. The service also helps you raise funds by giving you half of the money that's earned whenever a viewer clicks on an ad embedded in or placed adjacent to your video. Blip.tv allows users to decide which firm delivers the ads and where those ads appear.
    * DoGooderTV
      DoGooderTV specifically serves the nonprofit community by only accepting clips from registered 501(c)3 organizations. Currently, the site lets you place a link to your organization's donation page on your video page, and DoGooderTV also gives nonprofits 50 percent of the advertising-generated revenue their videos earn. However, if you do not wish to have advertisements around your video, you can instead pay DoGooderTV to host your content.
    * Google Video
      Though Google recently acquired prominent video-sharing service YouTube, the search engine still currently hosts its own large library of user-submitted clips. Nonprofits, comedians, musicians — and almost anyone else who wants to share a video — can submit their work to this site.
    * Metacafe
      Although anyone can upload a video clip to this sharing site, your organization can also use it as a fundraising medium if your content becomes popular. Once your video has received 20,000 views and a user rating of at least three stars, your organization qualifies for Metacafe's Producer Rewards program, in which you earn $5 for every additional 1,000 views your clip receives.
    * Ourmedia
      Nonprofit video-sharing service Ourmedia partners with the Internet Archive — an online service that periodically catalogs Web sites — to ensure that your organization's video clips will be available to your constituents for years to come. In addition to video, Ourmedia also hosts audio clips, images, and text files.
    * Revver
      Similar to Blip.tv, video-sharing site Revver also gives you half of the advertising revenues generated by your organization's clips.
    * Yahoo Video
      Like rival search engine Google, Yahoo has also introduced its own video-sharing site, which the company debuted in June 2006.
    * YouTube
      By far the Internet's best-known and most-popular video-sharing site, YouTube’s massive user base watches more than 100 million videos each day.

Licensing Terms

A video-sharing site's licensing terms disclose information such as who owns the copyright to the content once it has been uploaded and what liberties the site may take with the clips it hosts. Below are some licensing questions you may want to ask yourself when reading the TOS agreement of a video-sharing site you are considering.
Who owns my video?

If your organization has spent time and money to produce a public-service announcement or an advocacy video, you're likely concerned about whether you retain ownership of the content once you upload it to a video-sharing site. The good news is that every video-sharing site listed above allows the poster to retain a full copyright of all clips he or she uploads.
Can the site repurpose or alter my video?

While all of the video-sharing sites we looked at allow the poster to retain full ownership of their content, most of them also reserve the right to repurpose or syndicate clips on partner sites. Also, video-sharing sites commonly reserve the right to modify or prepare derivative works of your video, with the exception of Ourmedia, which will not alter content in any way.

If you're concerned that a video-sharing site might edit your nonprofit's clip in a manner that takes it out of context and changes its meaning, you may want to contact the site to find out exactly how they might alter your video and whether your organization would have any say in the final clip.

For instance, if DoGooderTV wishes to change a popular video in order to syndicate it at other sites, the service would most likely seek editing assistance from the individual or nonprofit that produced the clip.

"We have yet to encounter a case where we want to change something," said Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 Communications (DoGooderTV's parent organization), "but if we do, we would most likely go back to the organization to help us do it so that we have a good version of [the video]."

Though Blip.tv also reserves the right to make derivative works of a user's video, the service's CEO, Mike Hudack, explained that this clause is in place so that Blip.tv can make thumbnails for previewing clips or transcode it to a different file format — legally both considered derivative works. Hudack also stated that users who don't want to syndicate their videos on other sites can disable this functionality.
Can I attach a Creative Commons license to my video?

Creative Commons licenses let copyright holders allow others to reprint and distribute their content across the Internet. If your nonprofit has produced a video that it wishes to publicize widely, you may find it beneficial to upload your video to a site that supports Creative Commons licensing.

However, if your organization just hopes to spread its video across the Web and doesn't want other people to edit it in ways that might change its context, choose the Creative Commons license carefully; some types allow others to make derivative works of your content or profit from it, while others are more restrictive. For help choosing a license that's right for you, visit Creative Commons' Choosing A License. If you want more background on how Creative Commons licenses work, read TechSoup's article Reprint Our Articles Without Asking. Seriously.

On the other hand, if you'd rather only have your video on one site that you can keep track of, you may want to choose a site that will let you restrict users from downloading your video. For more information on which sites let you disable downloading functionality, read TechSoup's article Share Your Nonprofits' Videos With The World.
Privacy Terms

Like the majority of sites on the Web, video-sharing sites provide visitors with privacy policies that specify, among other things, what type of personal information a site collects about its members and how the site may use this data. Keeping the questions below in mind when reading through a site’s privacy policy will ensure that you're aware of the potential ramifications of uploading a video.
Will the site hand over my personal information if required by law?

If your nonprofit produces activist videos that are critical of corporations, governments, or political groups, it could eventually find itself faced with the threat of legal action. Video-sharing sites will reveal your personal information if required by law, so your organization may want to take a few steps to protect its identity before uploading a potentially troublesome clip.

Corynne McSherry, an Electric Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney who worked on the recent Landmark case, points to the EFF's Blogger FAQs on intellectual property, privacy, and online defamation as good resources for nonprofits that want to minimize their chances of facing legal action when uploading videos to sharing sites.

McSherry also suggests that users wishing to protect their online identities check the TOS agreement for other services they use — including their Internet Service Provider. She pointed out that while some online services will notify a user before surrendering their personal information, others may simply comply with the subpoena before giving an anonymous user the chance to remove the offending content.
Will the site record my IP address?

Most video-sharing sites have a policy of recording a poster's Internet Protocol (IP) address, a unique number used to identify individual computers connected to the Internet. If your nonprofit is concerned about retaining its online anonymity, you should be aware that your IP address can be used to determine your true identity.

Ethan Zuckerman's article A Technical Guide To Anonymous Blogging offers a number of tips for obscuring your IP address, including posting from a public computer with a large number of users and using an anonymous proxy server, which replaces your machine's real IP address with a random number.

Additionally, you might choose to upload your video to Ourmedia, the only video service we examined that doesn't record the IP addresses of individual users. "We've never taken any steps to try to acquire IP addresses," said JD Lasica, President of Ourmedia.
Will the site share my personal information with third parties?

Some Web sites may share or sell their users' personal data with third-party firms or partners in order to target advertisements or send users unsolicited emails. Needless to say, nonprofits concerned with their online privacy will probably want to avoid any Web site that divulges personal information without express consent.

For the most part, video sites don't make a practice of sharing a user's personal identifying data, though some services reserve the right to do so if they have your express permission. Other sites, such as Yahoo Video, reserve the right to share individual user data with trusted third parties but forbid these parties from sharing this data with other companies or individuals.
Will the site send me unsolicited emails?

Many nonprofits already receive more spam than they know what to do with and may not wish to receive additional emails after creating an account at a video service.

Though some video services will send you a confirmation email to inform you that your upload was a success, the eight sites discussed in this article will not send users unsolicited email. Note, however, that Yahoo, Revver, and YouTube require users to opt out of receiving periodic promotional emails.
Content Guidelines

Just as video-sharing sites have set up rules stating how they can and cannot use your personal information, most have also implemented policies that detail what kind of content you can and cannot upload. The following questions can help you weigh your options when choosing a video-sharing site.
What kind of content am I prohibited to post?

Though they may be difficult to enforce, all video-sharing sites have a set of rules that dictate what kind of content users can and cannot post. All video sites forbid users from uploading material that they do not own the copyright to and will likely remove any content that violates this policy. In addition, every site discussed in this article will remove pornographic material if they detect its presence.

However, many sites also have policies that also prohibit content deemed excessively violent, potentially libelous, racially charged, or otherwise "offensive." So what does this mean for nonprofits who might want to post videos exposing racist groups or human-rights violations?

Though there's no clear-cut rule in determining which type of content certain sites will deem offensive, the video's context will likely play a key role in determining whether the service will host it or remove it. For instance, according to Hoffman, DoGooderTV considers a video's purpose and spirit when deciding whether it's an appropriate addition to the site.

"If the purpose [of the video] is to recruit people for a Neo-Nazi group, then we would want the video off the site," said Hoffman. "But if you are the Southern Poverty Law Center and the purpose of the video is to expose [the Neo-Nazi group's] activities and raise awareness, then we would see it with a different lens."
Can I remove my video at any time?

As a video gets older, some of its content may no longer be relevant to your organization's mission or even factually correct. In such cases, you may wish to remove the video from the Internet to avoid confusing your audience. All of the video sharing sites discussed in this article will allow you to remove your content at any time, though your participation in certain site's revenue-sharing programs could affect your ability to withdraw your video.
Miscellaneous Terms

Besides considering licensing terms, privacy terms, and content guidelines, your nonprofit also might have questions about a few other key points found in a video-sharing site's TOS.
Will the site display ads around my video?

As a general rule, the majority of video-sharing sites reserve the right to display advertisements in or near a user's video. While some video sites retain all of the revenue generated by advertisements, others give a portion of these funds to the video's producer (see “Will the site allow me to use my video to raise funds?” below).

Some nonprofits may be concerned that their video could end up inadvertently matched with an advertisement that conflicts with their organization's mission and ethics. Since many online advertising firms use a video's content or keywords to determine which ads are relevant, there's a chance that an ad from a certain corporation could actually be paired with a video that criticizes that same corporation.

If you want to avoid any chance of an advertisement clashing with your video's purpose and spirit, you might want to upload the clip to a site that allows you to disable having ads placed in or around your video. Some sites, like Blip.TV, offer the producer the ability to turn off ads and choose from different advertising partners, some of which use more targeted methods to determine which ads are most relevant to a video.

"Some of our advertising partners actually go so far as to analyze the speech within the video to gain better contextual information," said Blip CEO Hudack.
Will the site allow me to use my video to raise funds?

Most nonprofits probably initially create videos to raise awareness around an issue or recruit new supporters to their cause. However, since a number of video-sharing sites have introduced programs that allow producers to earn money from the content they upload, your nonprofit's video also has the potential to serve as a fundraising tool.

For instance, Blip.tv, DoGooderTV, Google Video, and Revver have each implemented programs that give video producers a percentage of the revenue earned each time a person clicks or views an advertisement found in or adjacent to their clips. On the other hand, Metacafe's aforementioned Producer Rewards program compensates producers of popular videos by paying them for every 1,000 views their clip receives.

While Ourmedia doesn't currently have any revenue-sharing programs in place, the service is planning to implement a model in which producers can earn money. Currently, Ourmedia allows you to sell DVDs of your videos on the site — as long as the content also remains freely available to the public.
Video-Sharing Sites TOS Comparison Chart

Once you've gotten a handle on the most crucial points found in video-sharing sites' TOS agreements and privacy policies, download our Excel chart (below) to see how the eight aforementioned services compare. Knowing what a video-sharing site can and can't do with your work — and your personal information — will give your organization a better idea as to which services best suit its needs and goals

[KneeRow]

Don't forget who started this crap