Showing posts with label Vimeo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vimeo. Show all posts

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Vimeo Stole My Stuff (Again)




Spike,
Firstly, we did actually give you a warning period. We put a contextual notice on the account and sent a warning email at least two weeks before taking action.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but can you tell me when that was? 

Because I didn't see it, and nothing red flashed up on my account to say Take Action Now Before We Delete All Your Work! - I would have remembered that.

If it was from a human being, I would have seen it and responded to it - if it was from a machine, and autogenerated it would have been filtered out by my junk mail filter, along with four thousand overly cheery Your Video is Now Available! emails I get four dozen of per week.

But if you say you did, I don't dispute that.
Secondly, we never said that you weren’t in violation of our Community Guidelines (https://vimeo.com/help/guidelines). We have consistently maintained that you are, in fact, violating our Guidelines. That is the main point of this conversation.

Well, you did say that, because you just said "There are exceptions for PRO members to upload material they did not create as long as they own the necessary rights and permissions", and you haven't asserted or produced any evidence alleging or suggesting that I don't have the right to do so.

You haven't said "We have reason to believe you don't have the necessary rights or permissions to upload this, please can you provide proof of it or take it down",  and provided its for personal use and time-shifted viewing, the law says I DO - that's why VCR's and TIVOs aren't illegal. 


You just deleted all of my work then sent me an email asking me to submit to you four and a half thousand pieces of paperwork.

To you. In writing.

On another continent.

And - most insultingly of all - actually expected me to do it. 

Because you insist that I'm being unreasonable.
While we want to support filmmakers, we do not allow rips of third party material.

Firstly, "rip" is a pejorative term - it has no legal meaning, basis or grounding.

This is why Vimeo guidelines use internal POLICY as the standard, not Copyright Law, as YouTube does.

If you want to use your own rules, you have to define what words MEAN when you use them, otherwise you are just speaking at crossed purposes - and all the Hipster-talk DOESN'T help.

Say what you mean.

A piece of DV video is a rip of the physical universe, but you allow that.

I don't use "rips" in my film-making. I use found footage.

Say what you like about YouTube, but at least they have a system in place based on law and due process.

Your system isn't - so again, let's not pretend that this has anything to do with the Guidelines, because it doesn't.

And that's fine - but when you want to portray yourselves as creator-orientated and appeal to artists and be crazy, temperamental random and unpredictable, then you have to accept that people are people and not corporate entities or naughty children and treat them as such.

Especially when they pay your salaries. And bad publicity of abusing your customers can adversely affect your relationship with say - Apple Inc....?
There are exceptions for PRO members to upload material they did not create as long as they own the necessary rights and permissions but this does not extend to straight rips of episodes of Frontline or films like “Barbarians at the Gate” (as non-exhaustive examples). It is not relevant whether the videos are public or private, the same rules apply from our end.

I completely understand, and you are right - all you had to do was ask, and say "Please".

I am perfectly happy to take that stuff down tonight. Right now.

If there is anything else (specifically) that you take issue you, please let me know, and I will be happy to make my life, and your life easier, and sing your praises to the Gods of the Internet.

Rules are fine so long as they as consistent - I use my account for time-shifting viewing for material I find interesting, and if you look at my stats, you will see that is true, since most of that stuff is marked Private anyway.

I'm storing content for personal use and time shifted viewing, not distributing it to other people.

Every law in the world says I can do that, and there is nothing in your guidelines that specifically says that I can't do that. If you don't want people to do that, when they pay their money to to be able to do that, you should specifically and explicitly say you can't do that - but that would tend to drive away business, I would think.

If you look at the stats for my account, you will see that that is true - the vast majority of the content on there is marked as private, and the only person accessing that stuff (for my personal reference, as. Research tool) is me.
Thirdly, it is true that when we have taken action against you in the past you have taken steps to comply. 

Quite true. I am a good customer.
However, the fact that these are conversations that we keep needing to have actually counts against you. 

Fine, now this is a conversation - that's good. Doing Better.

There hasn't been a conversation (or any issue, so far as I was aware) in over a year - I talk to my mother more often than I do you guys. 

I'm a reasonable human being and we're all adults here and I comply with reasonable requests - I have a 100% track record of doing precisely what you ask me to do, when you ask me to do it (and all these nice conversations all get recorded faithfully on my blog to reflect that fact).

In this instance, I wasn't asked to do anything - I am happy to be proved wrong if that is incorrect.
We have had several different warning about this, and it seems to be a recurring issue. 

Can you list them? I'm not trying being rude or insolent, I just don't recall any warnings since last June, my bipolar can make me rather excitable, and I like to be sure of my grasp of the facts.
As you mentioned, the first time we had to have this conversation we did everything we could to clarify our position and help you comply with these rules. 
And, at that time I did. I think I deleted about 200 videos in 10 minutes, which I had been meaning to do for a while, but you gave me the extra kick needed to spur me into action.

Again, I have a 100% track record of doing exactly as requested, when requested, and I understand what is expected of me.


Eventually, we need to stop giving chances and I am afraid that time has come.
Yes, but if I can change, then you can change - everybody can change.

[Rocky IV]


Lastly, although we can no longer provide hosting for your videos I recognize that you have amassed a wide body of work here and not everything was a rip. 
Magnanimous of you, but still unfair - most of them weren't rips (as you call them), at least if those I made public via my channel, and never have been.


One thing I can do is to put your account in Temporary Access Mode. 

See? All you had to do was ask.


That's exactly what I expected you to do in the first place.


This would force all your videos private and create a limited window for you to go in and archive them so that they are not lost when the account is shutdown.

That would be very helpful, thank you, since I do not have a single respoitory of back-ups.

I actually don't have a computer currently, but provided you can give me a few days, I should be able to sort out a portable HDD to rip everything onto and archive it (which seems more than a little ironic to me, and I am sure you).


I realize this is frustrating, 

That isn't the word I would use.

Only in the sense that Moby Dick was rather frustrating to Captain Ahab.

The word I would use probably only exists in Japanese, Old Norse and Klingon.

But you probably wouldn't like to hear it.
but we have elected to no longer provide hosting for your material.

Well, I have elected to continue to be your customer. Whether you like it or not.

Deal with it.


Please let me know if you would like me to put your account in temporary access mode.

I would like that very much indeed. That's all I expected to begin with.

Please let me know how much time I have to clean up my account/rescue my work.

Sean M - you are a gentleman and a scholar, sir.

Thank you.

TTFN,

Spike


Sincerely,
Sean M
Senior Manager, Trust & Safety

Stay in touch! Vimeo Staff Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr
Paul
AUG 23, 2015  |  12:30PM EDT
Sean M, Milisa B, Logan O, et al,

Good morning, welcome back, I hope you all enjoyed your staff retreat. I shall make this brief :-

Now - I am (and have been) perfectly happy and willing to do any and all housekeeping to tidy up my account with regard to the videos I uploaded to it for my personal use only, with no intention of sharing - or indeed with any Public videos which may be in breach of the Golden Rule - I am the first to admit there may be some that slipped through the net of my due diligence, certainly not many, and I am perfectly willing to take down any you may legitimately have a grievance with or believe are in violation of either the spirit or the letter of your guidelines or terms of service - indeed, your own records will reflect the fact that in every instance when I have been asked to take remedial action on my account, I have done so.

I accept the fact that I am overdue in such housekeeping and there are perhaps a few things uploaded to my account which perhaps should not have been there - again, I was, and am perfectly prepared to be reasonable about this.

Now - I love being a customer of your company.

I wish to go on being a customer of your company.

We all know that though the final decision to terminate accounts is no-doubt discressionary to members of the Trust and Safety Team, you yourselves have rules and guidelines about when and where this action should be taken, and it's quite clear to me that you haven't followed those.

You have admitted that I am not in breach of Guidelines - so, though you may not admit it, this is a discretionary decision on your part, it has nothing to do with the rules.

You know that you are meant to notify me before terminating my account, give me enough (reasonable) time to take remedial action myself (which I am perfectly willing to do), and which you have not done.

I have a good idea myself of the precise parameters of the content you have concerns about, and I am fully confident myself that I can have the whole corpus cleaned up within 20 minutes, never mind 24hrs, which is what I propose as a reasonable amount of time to take remedial action (although, the last time this occurred, I believe you offered me One Week to take action, and the outcome was satisfactory to all concerned.

I am prepared to take remedial action. I want to take remedial action. I want to continue to be your customer.

The ball is currently in your court, because the decision lies with you as to whether or not to aallow me to do any of those things.

In the absence of those options, the only course of action open to me is to complain, and complain publicly

Your company is one, we both know, which likes to pretend that they don't care about money and is entirely staffed by quirky creatives and starving artists.

And we both know that isn't true.

I am a film-maker and a documentarian who has had his work taken away from him - my experience (currently) of Vimeo in the last 7 Days is one of a company that steals my work, destroys my content, throws my money back into my face and patronises me whilst doing it.

This stands in stark contrast to my experience of the previous two years, where your company (to me) has been the best thing since sliced bread and oxygen and the one thing I would recommend to all my friends.

Film-making is my life. And I would like for film-making to continue to be my life.

Your company depends on its reputation with up-and-coming creatives, hipsters and starving artists.

If they start to get the idea that "Vimeo will steal your work, destroy your content, doesn't want your money and is incredibly patronising to starving artists and up-and-coming film-makers", that creates a PR nightmare that need not happen.

I am not asking for special treatment, I am only asking for fair treatment and consistent treatment, in line with that which I received when this problem last occurred and when you last prematurely terminated my account.

I am prepared to do whatever it takes to put this right and get my work restored, I just ask you to be fair, follow your own rules, tell me what I need to do and be reasonable, which is what all your previous communication have emphasised in making these decisions.

I will do what is required - in fact, as a hyper-manic bipolar documentarian with a blog, I might do just about anything.

Please be reasonable, and if you can't be reasonable, give me a reason - because I am NOT in breach of guidelines (as you yourself admit, Sean M) and this has nothing to do with the rules.

Give me 24 hrs to clean up my account, and after that, I am happy to pay again to have my PRO Mmbership restored (since Sean M has already initiated a refund without waiting to hear back from me).

I hope you can respond to my plea constructiveall,

Spike
Paul
AUG 20, 2015  |  05:38PM EDT
>>> It is true that PRO members can upload videos they did not create as long as they hold the necessary rights and permissions
>>>

Then I would consider that fact very carefully, as it leaves you in an extremely actionable position - by your own admission, I am not in breech of Guidelines.
Paul
AUG 20, 2015  |  05:31PM EDT
I am not in breach of Guidelines, and I am a paying customer - what gives you the right to destroy my work and destroy my business?
Paul
AUG 20, 2015  |  05:05PM EDT
I do not want a refund - I want the service I have paid for.
Paul
AUG 20, 2015  |  05:01PM EDT
Which videos do you allege I did not have a hand in creating?
AUG 20, 2015  |  04:32PM EDT
Paul,
The golden rule of Vimeo is that you are only supposed to upload videos that you created yourself or had a hand in creating. Fair use and/or permission from the rights holder do not make an exception to this general rule.
It is true that PRO members can upload videos they did not create as long as they hold the necessary rights and permissions, but this is not a blanket permission to upload rips. We have actually gone over this before, and although there was some progress it has become a recurring problem and there are several rips uploaded to your account.
I am afraid that we can no longer provide hosting.
That said, I do see that your most recent PRO subscription was within the refund window so I have initiated a refund.
We wish you the best of luck in finding a hosting platform better suited to your needs.
Sincerely,
Sean M
Senior Manager, Trust & Safety

Stay in touch! Vimeo Staff Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr
AUG 20, 2015  |  08:35PM EDT
Hi there,
I’m assigning your case to a member of our Trust & Safety team who can better assist you with this inquiry.
You’ll hear back from us again shortly. Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
Zena H


Stay in touch! Vimeo Staff Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr
Paul
AUG 19, 2015  |  07:44PM EDT
Original message
> We sent an email notifying you that your videos may be in violation of our guidelines, and when you did not respond within the grace period specified, our content moderators took action on your account.
>

That is not true - I received no prior notification of possible violations at all, this happened completely without warning, and I was given no opportunity to take remedial action.

> Permission to use copyrighted material can come in a variety of forms, but the permission must be given in writing. You can acquire a formal license from the copyright holder, or receive permission via email.
>
There is no mention of this in the content guidelines or terms of service, and this is the first I have heard of this - and from memory, when I last checked, I had well over 4000 videos, primarily for personal use and access hosted on my account.

It's not reasonable or consistent with with either your own guidelines or terms of service to request or expect me to produce at this stage somewhere in the order of several thousand pieces of documentation in a formalised manner, particularly when with my account suspended, I cannot even myself see what content of mine you are currently hosting.



Sent from my iPad
For your reference this is Case #: 1177481
[[e687af183b8474896ac7681bfe056ade0d94fe44-510541148]]

Monday 23 June 2014

Vimeo



I know for an absolute fact that this action on your part has nothing whatever to do with any genuine or perceived breach of your guidelines.

I edit footage on my iPad - the only way I can easily import the footage I incorporate into my original works in a standardised format is via the Vimeo app.

For this reason, since my previous account was suspended, without notice and without refunding the cost of my Plus+ Subscription, I have maintained two paid Vimeo+ Plus accounts - one for solely original work and the other for found footage and potentially infringing material, both accounts established in the same week, for the purposes of protecting my original content and personal brand, hyperlinks and stats, with Chinese Walls between the two.

The account carrying original work, carried almost 300 original works, and has been "deleted" (this term is dishonest), for a breech of Vimeo Guidelines which did not occur - never have there been any requests to remove specific content for codified an enumerated perceived infringements on individual videos, and only one GENERAL warning less than 48 hours ago.

The account carrying ONLY infringing material currently carries around 1300 clips, none of them original works, and has never been subject to a single warning over the GENERAL content, and only two or three automatic deletion a individual clips.

This has nothing to do with breaching Vimeo Guidelines, and that's demonstrably not true.

If you object to the content of my work, please explain to me why.

I don't want my money back. I wish to continue being a customer and using this service and I am going to do so, with or without your cooperation;

I merely insist on my rights.





Copywrong

Etymology

Coined as an antonym for copyright, on the basis of right and wrong.

Noun

copywrong (countable and uncountableplural copywrongs)
  1. (nonce word) The unethical use of, or disregard for, copyright law.
    • 1847, Freeman Hunt, Hunt's merchants' magazine (page 539)
      We do it with less compunctious visitings of conscience, on the score of copyright or copywrong, as we are informed by the New York bookseller, that the demand, since we commenced the publication of our extracts, has been greater than the supply...
    • 1998Network World (volume 15, number 12, 23 March 1998)
      But immediately we run headlong into the issue of copywrong. For instance, take a sample of some artist and mix it with other samples and sounds to create a new work and you will get a composition that will attract entertainment lawyers like a garbage bin gathers flies.
    • 2005, Gerard M Stegmaier, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: 2005 supplement
      For me personally, the copyrights and "copywrongs," as I have called them, simply boil down to either one or two things, and that is it's either an act of distribution or it is an act of consumption.

See also





Copyleft

Etymology

Pun on copyright.

Noun

copyleft (usually uncountableplural copylefts)
  1. The philosophy of using copyrights to enforce freedom of information, especially software source code.
    They believe in copyleft because they want their software to be used freely by anyone.
  2. software license that follows this philosophy.
    I have placed my program under copyleft.
    The GNU General Public License is a copyleft licence.

Derived terms






Melissa,

Again: I advise you to read this,  because you (and your boss) are in it (and will continue to be until I receive the level of customer service I am paying for (twice)).

http://spikethenews.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/vimeo.html

I did look over your Guidelines, I am intimately familiar with them. I am not in breach of them. 

Everything published on my account is my own work, and carries the following disclaimer and correct legal declarations.

image.png

I am in full compliance with your Guidelines, I know them inside and out.

If you disagree, please explain why, because I know full well you are overworked and underpaid have done absolutely nothing to examine the substance of my assertion of creative rights on their merits.

In the absence of a genuine or honest explanation of any specific breech of your guidelines that you are able to factually substitute, I am forced to conclude that actual reason for abridging my rights is based on something other than any claimed breach of your guidelines and indeed is in fact motivated for other more nefarious motives.

It could be racism. It could be political censorship.  It could simply be personal animus and harassment.

I have no information to lead me to conclude that it's not any of those things, and you have declined to provide any when requested to do so.

I do know that your claimed reason (uploading unoriginal content I did not create) is false.

What you say is UNTRUE.

Please refer my complaint to your supervisor.

Paul


Sent from my iPad

On 24 Jun 2014, at 07:59, "Rights (Vimeo)" <rights@vimeo.com> wrote:

Please type your reply at the top of the email.
JUN 24, 2014  |  02:59AM EDT

Hi there,

Thanks for your response.

Please look over our Guidelines: https://vimeo.com/help/guidelines

You may not upload content to Vimeo that you did not create yourself. Please note that having permission is not enough, and that public domain videos are not allowed either.

If you or your organization were not involved in the creation of these videos, they will need to be removed.

Another option would be to get a PRO account, which allows users to upload content they did not create themselves but have permission to upload. You can learn more about PRO at https://vimeo.com/pro and at https://vimeo.com/help/pro_guidelines.

Sincerely,
Milisa B
Content + Community Associate

 How am I doing? Please rate your Vimeo Support experience.                         
Stay in touch! Vimeo Staff Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr
Paul
JUN 23, 2014  |  04:21PM EDT 
Original message
I know for an absolute fact that this action on your part has nothing whatever to do with any genuine or perceived breach of your guidelines.

I edit footage on my iPad - the only way I can easily import the footage I incorporate into my original works in a standardised format is via the Vimeo app.

For this reason, since my previous account was suspended, without notice and without refunding the cost of my Plus+ Subscription, I have maintained two paid Vimeo+ Plus accounts - one for solely original work and the other for found footage and potentially infringing material, both accounts established in the same week, for the purposes of protecting my original content and personal brand, hyperlinks and stats, with Chinese Walls between the two.

The account carrying original work, carried almost 300 original works, and has been "deleted" (this term is dishonest), for a breech of Vimeo Guidelines which did not occur - never have there been any requests to remove specific content for codified an enumerated perceived infringements on individual videos, and only one GENERAL warning less than 48 hours ago.

The account carrying ONLY infringing material currently carries around 1300 clips, none of them original works, and has never been subject to a single warning over the GENERAL content, and only two or three automatic deletion a individual clips.

This has nothing to do with breaching Vimeo Guidelines, and that's demonstrably not true.

If you object to the content of my work, please explain to me why.

I don't want my money back. I wish to continue being a customer and using this service and I am going to do so, with or without your cooperation;

I merely insist on my rights.








Sent from my iPad

> On 23 Jun 2014, at 13:13, Vimeo <no-reply@vimeo.com> wrote:


> To ensure delivery, add no-reply@vimeo.com to your address book.


Milisa,

That's very kind of you, I appreciate your help.

I apologise for being so blunt, but this is something I am extremely passionate about, and I try extremely hard to abide by the rules and obey the letter of the law, and I am glad to pay for the quality of service your site provides as a loyal and faithful customer.

I'm aware that a lot of this process is probably automated by various red flags being raised, and I'm sure that the volume of these complaints probably far exceeds the reasonable expectation of how ever many staff members you have there to properly examine every case in very much detail;

So thank you for listening, and putting me in touch with the right people to hopefully get this resolved.

I'll leave you some good feedback.