Using Copyrighted material in a videoblog

My friend, Andreas, made a good argument for respecting copyrights in videoblogs.
Please comment if you think differently.
I can't see the problem.

>Don't screw copyrights unless you want to get screwed over
> yourself.
> Not to mention that you would never be able to go beyond the "wee, we're
> just goofing around" stage. If you want people to take you seriously, if
> you want to have companies build software for you you can't ignore
> copyright laws. Basing a business plan on copyright infringement is a
> quick recipe for disaster. If you on the other hand is happy to have an
> underground phenomena then feel free to ignore copyrights. I'd like
> videoblogging to be just a little tiny bit more than that, and that's why
> I take copyrights seriously.

Fair enough.
you make a good argument.
here's my confusion.
let's say I make a video today.
tomorrow i wake up and someone has put it up on their site as their own.
what do i do? call the internet cops?
i can bitch and moan, but in the end Im not too worried about it.
If someone kept stealing my material and calling it his own, I'd just get the word out and we'd all hate him.

for me, "copyright issues" become an issue when $$$$$$ is involved.
Metallica getting angry because college kids arent paying for their albums.
This isn't how I see videoblogging.
we arent making Movies you buy and sell in stores.
videoblogging is expression and documentation and citizen journalism.
We are only underground in so far as we dont fit into a corporation's strategy...yet.
Let them build around us.

In Community TV, people have used copyrighted material for years.
Clips from local news, music videos, scenes from movies, songs...
It's all "stolen", but it's also put in context.
I like the Fair Use laws in the US.
And really, no one ever bothers us becasue we make no money from these shows.

Videoblogging is goofing around but its also dead serious.
we're making something real that has never existed.
i can put up video that the entire wired Earth can see.
how much does this costs me? 8.95 each month for server space.

i dont know what other visions for videoblogging are,
but I want to turn on the internet and see everything in people's heads come alive in video.
i want someone documenting anything that happens on this planet and posting it without spin.
I want to see people's lives.
I want to watch someone's studied, personal opinion, not large propaganda.

If people have to borrow other work to get their point across or tell a joke, im not sure I see the problem.

Comments

[Susan]

for me, it becomes an issue when someone re-hashes one of my videos, and puts images of my children in their own. I don't think I'm cool with that. So don't post videos of my children, one might say... but they are my world, and I express myself as I please.