Need video advice

freddy

Calling all you video nerds.

I find myself needing to splice together parts of a number of videos. Some of them are on YerTerb, some are available for download (in .m4v format).

1. Can anyone give me a rundown on legal issues I will confront related to the downloading? I believe it's against YT TOS to download their videos; is that true? Any workarounds?
2. All of these videos are produced by public agencies for educational purposes, and we will be assembling snippets for another public agency for educational purposes. None of the videos list any specific copyright information. What should I be assuming? Is it fair game to modify them by just using part of the whole video? Do public agencies automatically retain copyright unless they specifically use CC licensing? I am willing to ask for permission, but I'm worried about the additional delay that would cause, and also worried about what we'd do if they said no...
3. What quality issues should I be thinking about? Should I assume that all videos on YT are low-quality versions of some original version? Will there be further loss in quality if I modify and re-upload YT videos? Is that .m4v format good enough to use as a master?
4. Assuming all of these legal and quality impediments can be overcome, I'd value advice about exactly how to do it - how to extract the videos, and what my options are for editing them.

I won't have to do the actual work, but I will be directing it - defining the exact segments and how they'd get edited together.

Thanks in advance.

lolo

YERTERB is making me laugh so hard.

Loose_Thread

1. The first step is to simply obtain the videos, non? Download this extension for Firefox on the computer you will use to grab the vids. It puts a handy little button in your browser that loads whenever there is a video you can download:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/
2. Public agency/educational purposes sounds to me like you don't have anything to worry about.
3. There are workflows you can use to keep the quality the same as the original, YrTube-encoded file (it's sometimes, but not neccessarily, a relatively low quality which means the smaller the screen, the better it will look). The addon I use, linked above, will give you access to all available sizes. Grabbing the largest size possible is more important than the file type (avoid the .flv version).
4. If you are going to simply download the files, make notes of which sections to use, and hand it off to someone else, all you need is Quicktime, pencil and paper. Go through each video, write the exact name of the file, then list each segment you want to keep in hh:mm:ss format. Like: "Bike_Lane_March_13_2013.mov: 00:01:05 to 00:01:36." Number each of these segments like SEG001, SEG002, etc., and then you can make another section to show the editor how to string them together. "SEG005. 1 second black screen. Diamond-dazzle transition to SEG010..." All you need is to open all your videos in Quicktime and rearrange them on your screen to test out how they will flow together.

I will be glad to help you with anything, Freddy! I do much video wrangling at home (in the house behind Wanda's).

freddy

OMG you are some kind of angel, LT! So, you really think I'm in the clear on copyright/permissions? I already have a clear list of which sections I need...

Loose_Thread

You can always do your due diligence in research... like google the name of the agency, then media, and try to find their home media center. Also in YouTube click on "more info" on each video and it should spell out the permissions for you. One way to be sure you're in the clear is to modify your YouTube search to show only Creative Commons videos, then check the type of attribution they require. I don't know the law 100%. I purposely use video from government agencies because it is OK to reuse without permissions.

freddy

"I purposely use video from government agencies because it is OK to reuse without permissions."

How do you know that/how does it work?

Loose_Thread

OK you caught me, I'm not a legal expert! This broad statement just comes from experience from searching the web for royalty-free, copyright-free, public domain, etc. content and consistently finding that video produced by government agencies is my #1 customer.

Is this relevant? I can't tell because my work computer doesn't have sound:




More resources:
http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml
http://associatesmind.com/2012/04/09/how-to-find-public-domainroyalty-freecreative-commons-video/
http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/pubdomain.html
https://public.resource.org/

freddy

Well...it's a little bit helpful. The question you're answering is, 'where can I find public domain/copyright-free content?' whereas I need to answer, 'is this specific item public domain/copyright-free?'

I'm still working through what you found, and I am super grateful for your advice. But I do think I need to do a little more due diligence before I act, since if I do something wrong and I get caught, it could be bad for my company and my client...

Loose_Thread

Sorry! I don't have much to say on that count, aside from checking the policies of individual agencies.

freddy

Doing that now. Thanks again.

MirandaJuly

Using short excerpts of copyrighted content for the noncommercial purpose of commentary on the subjects within is generally considered fair use. It's unlikely that you will be sued for copyright infringement in this context, but fair use is actually only determined in court when you're being sued. The judge decides whether what you did was fair use or not.

Are you distributing these new video edits or just using them in a presentation? Your risk for being sued and losing a fair use lawsuit seems low.

Schlabe

If you want to keep from being sued, you can use one of three proven strategies:

1. Don't make any money. Small mash-up guys, remixers, and DJs don't get sued because they don't have any cash and it isn't worth it.

2. Scare the lawyers. Girl Talk hasn't been sued because he would probably win. Did you know that the music industry has never ever lost a fair use case? It is true (as far as I know). They want to keep that 100%, so they don't go after GT.

3. Join the club. Danger Mouse may have trouble personally distributing The Grey Album, but he isn't being sued personally because he's on a label as Gnarls Barkley.

Of course, I'm no lawyer, but as DJ Invisiboy I broke copyright law on the regular, and am still a member of several online groups of other remixers/producers/mash-up guys.

This movie is good and may prove useful:
http://ripremix.com/

freddy

Yeah, the video won't make any $. We're just assembling portions of existing bike education videos in a specific order so that our teachers don't have to queue up a ton of online videos to different segments. (We can't use complete existing videos because they all include state-specific laws that are incorrect for the state we're working in.) We don't plan to put it online either - just distribute to teachers in that school district on DVDs.

One of the videos has a copyright notice on it, from a regional parks & rec district. Two others (one funded by a state DOT and one funded by a Health & Human Services department) have no copyright information listed one way or another. The fourth is from a federal agency, and as I understand it all US Government work is free of copyright limitations (source: http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml).

MirandaJuly

These videos are all currently available for free and you are not making any money from using them in this fashion. "No harm, no foul."

I find it unlikely you would get in trouble for what you're doing. Whether it's 100% "legal" is something probably only a lawyer could tell you.

freddy

LT, as I think about this project more, I think I'd like to learn about how to do this myself. I predict that this client will demand multiple rounds of re-editing, and I can't keep shopping it out to our subcontractor without driving him crazy. Can we make a date sometime? I can supply treats in trade...

Loose_Thread

Yeah! you can email me at r!@#$%^&* at the g****.com

Loose_Thread

Alex what about this one?

swamp_knobbler_mahan

ALEX

Loose_Thread

bless you