You've walked right into the middle of a real big issue. This isnt just about one or 2 technical issues with feeds being republished, for example even if you offered no feeds, some people would take issue with the core functionality of your embedded player.
See unfortunately theres a common misconception about web 2 user generated content, and blogging, podcasting and videoblogging. There can be an assumption that these sorts of content creators have far more liberal ideas about how their content may be shown and redistributed on the net. But in reality, a lot of these creators are interested in giving more rights to the users of the content, the viewers. But the same technologies that enable such things as subscribing to stuff that is then automatically downloaded, also enables other sites & services & companies to do things with the content. This is the dangerous ground, made especially sensitive by the fact the majority of creators arent reaping in loads of money, so may be extra miffed if they see 3rd parties, services, others, exploiting their work for profit. Now I am usually one of the loud shouters who starts verbally abusing such services & sites for taking liberties with peoples content. Theres been loads of ugly examples, some have made creators feel far more violated than others. Many specific technical remedies have formed part of the solution, most have come to comply a bit more with creators wishes but few have genuinely gone the whole distance. Sometimes it is because they would have no business if they complied fully, or acknowledged that their use of stuff might be a commercial use, and thus exclude to them a bulk of cc-non-commercial content out there. If you are unable to make specific feature changes to make everyone happy, then you may have to consider the opt-in model. Now you offer quite a few different services so it will be easy for me to trip-up in discussing this, but I get quite excited by some of the features you offer. I like the open web with mashups and people being able to make playlists and stuff. In an ideal world Id be happy if most creators hel that view, but I can see why this would not be an ideal world for many creators. One of the big problems is that the videos themselves are often not a self-contained representation of that persons web-publishing efforts. No matter how much we embrace various web gadgets, there is much resistance to the idea that a playlist someones work could be embedded in other sites. There are many good reasons why, but I remain conflicted because I love the elegant simplicity of say a podcast where the creator just wants it to spread any way it can. And services such as yours seem to rely on this stuff being accepted. But it isnt, people still want control, and it feels right for them to want control because of all the leechy ways people have found to exploit their work. You avoid my hate for now because I believe your service actually has potential added value for creators and viewers. In the web & world of my dreams such things would be deeply normal. But we dont live in that world, and its even possible that the corporations will give up on DRM before the little creators give up the right to have some control over how their content is used. Probably they shouldnt give it all up, but it will not be a dead simple path to finding the right balance. Your feed issue is trivial to fix compared to the potential conflict between your embedded players playlist etc abilities and what peopl feel is accaptable. Its a shame, youd probably get no stick at all if your thang was a desktop app, aggregation software can get away with having adverts in the app and nobody seems to moan much, but doing the same thing on a webpage will draw instant flak. Now just like youtube tries to avoid having to take on all responsibility for potential misuse of its service, I dont think you can be fully held accountable for every single potential misuse of your service. But the way Ive read things so far, there arent really any safeguards at all, and the featurelist reads like a wishlist for leeches. You make it easy for users to do all sorts of legitimate things, but you rely on humans to honour any copyright & creative commons isues with reuse of others video etc through your player. So you also make it easy for it to be misued. But then to be fair so does RSS in general, and that doesnt make everyone abandon or crap on RSS. It make people want to add their license terms to their feed, and so some do, but few services bother to read such information properly and do anything intelligent with it. Like I said, it will be a tricky balancing act. I guess you wont want to move to opt-in for all content, as that will decimate your content base. So you'll need to consider having a lengthy debate with the masses to learn more about where concensus lies, and preferably implement quite a few mechnaisms that reassure people and make your service less open to be used to leech peoples feeds wholesale. For example I havent heard many vloggers complain about another site embedding one of their videos on a page, its more when someones entire feed gets ripped off and put into a different context. This clashes badly with your feature that enables people to embed all someones work n a page somewhere, as I said I personally find such things interesting bu they are far from accepted, and the idea of such things fills many with dread due in part to bad experiences with adversiting & exploitation ruining it for all concerned. I hazard a guess that people would be more inclined to consider such things if there were a non-commercial internet that was clearly defined, where concent could be free from more shackes without running the risk of being exploited so readily. Ahh what a terrible shame, I often waffle in this group about exciting potential for flash players to mix text, video & audio together in interesting ways, and your service seems to do interesting stuff in this regard. But some of those features have led you to this minefield, hope it works out ok. Cheers Steve Elbows --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "ahwfour_1027" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, Roxanne -- We're working on the issues that Todd has addressed. > Please see Marshall's comments on Todd's blog: > http://www.geeknewscentral.com/archives/007003.html. We'll keep > everyone posted on the developments underway to address the issues and > concerns of the podcasting and vlogging communities. > > Thanks. Alex. > > Alex Williams > SplashCast > > --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Roxanne Darling" <okekai@> > wrote: > > > > Here is some communication between SplashCast and Todd Cochrane of > > Geek News Central: > > http://www.geeknewscentral.com/archives/007003.html#comments > > > > From Todd: > > "I like both Marshall, and Alex but hey guys this is not good in a big > > way. When I click on the channel feed you have created it says "Geek > > News Central Podcast by SplashCast Feed Agent -- SplashCast Channel" > > this is a cheap way of trying to defer the issue you have here. NOT > > ACCEPTABLE > > > > Every subscriber they get to their new re-purposed feeds is a > > subscriber taken away from my original feed. SplashCast will use those > > subscriber numbers to value their business. Its one thing if I had > > "opted in" but they have created a directory of content producers all > > with hijacked feeds." > > > > Roxanne > > > > Here's the other link: > > http://www.splashcastmedia.com/mypodcastnetwork > > > > > > On 5/1/07, Steve Garfield <steve@> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Where's the link back to the original blog site or video? > > > > > > On Apr 30, 2007, at 12:19 PM, ahwfour_1027 wrote: > > > > > > > It is important for us that we keep an open dialogue with > > > > podcasters and > > > > vloggers about the features we are adding and how the service > will be > > > > improved in the future for any podcaster, be they producing > audio or > > > > video programs. > > > > > > -- > > > Steve Garfield > > > http://SteveGarfield.com > > > > > > > -- > > Roxanne Darling > > "o ke kai" means "of the sea" in hawaiian > > 808-384-5554 > > > > http://www.beachwalks.tv > > http://www.barefeetshop.com > > http://www.barefeetstudios.com > > http://www.inthetransition.com > > >
