[Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations

[Robin McCain]

Yes, there are big differences between IMDB and YouTube rightswise.

IMDB requires that every submission be reviewed for accuracy and content 
before acceptance. They are trying to compete with Baseline and want to 
be seen as an equal - so they (perhaps overzealously even) require that 
new indie film productions have documented festival screenings before 
acceptance. This restriction is NOT imposed on the 350 production 
companies who are members of AMPTP, who are able to list projects as 
being in development forever.

YouTube uses a completely different approach. Anyone can put anything 
online anytime. The only time content origin is an issue is when it is 
challenged. Unlike other video sharing sites, there is no explicit "opt 
in" button asking if the uploader has copyright control over original 
content.

The Wikimedia movement is on the bleeding edge of evolving copyright 
law, just as are Google, The Internet Archive and many other evolving 
content providers. It is unfortunate that YouTube is so frequently used 
to share content without the copyright holder's consent as it lowers the 
trust level.

If someone wants to link to content they uploaded to a video sharing 
site for inclusion in Wikipedia, then use of a more trusted site might 
be in order to avoid editor action. How can we communicate this to the 
casual contributor?

On 7/16/2011 5:00 AM, foundation-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
> I haven't fully read the context of this thread, but something that
> did cross my
> mind recently, why do we treat YouTube-links different from other
> links here?
>
> Aren't most of our sources and external linked websites atleast as
> copyrighted
> as YouTube ?
>
> Consider links to IMDb for example, the content we link to, through
> that, is all copyrighted!
>
> Or just a good old "Official website"-link on an article about person
> X or
> organization Y, likely also "All rights reserved."
>
> YouTube atleast is partially (and soon more) under a CC-license.