Showing posts with label embedded media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label embedded media. Show all posts

Thursday, September 30, 2010

YouTube in a PowerPoint show!

Ok, All revved up to start posting regularly and my wheels are spinning off.  Great start to the school year but have jumped in full speed ahead.  Focus is on planning for the year and trying to get teacher's attention.  Lucky for me I have a few who are keeping me busy!

Have spent today trying to get ahead of the curve and figure out the best way to teach MLA formatting with newly installed Word 2007.  (What the heck is up with Google and the Calibri font?)  I will post on this topic very soon.  I've come up with some great questions regarding the level of teaching to do on this topic and some great solutions with various levels of student input.

Serendipitously, today I came across the answer to a question that I have been asked a bizzilion times (almost).  Can I put a YouTube video on my PowerPoint?  Well, yes Virginia, as of MS 2007 you can do exactly that!  And it is easy and fun!  Check out the video below for step by step details of what to do and how to do it.  (Might look a little scary for non-techies but very simple when following this recipe.)



This video assumes an active and unfiltered access to the Internet.  For districts that still block YouTube and other video sites other options do exist.  The same author who produced this video offers a second video describing a rather complicated method.  I prefer the much easier method of using Zamzar.com or other similar file conversion site to rip the video into a format that can be saved on the hard drive and played locally. 

When streaming video directly from YouTube, there are no copyright implications (see previous posts in this blog).  In any case where the video is removed from its source (converted and saved on your computer) it is important to remember to give credit to creators! 

Have a great day!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

YouTube - the new copyright cop!

The copyright ©law cometh! The blogosphere is abuzz with news about the new YouTube policy of "muting" videos that contain copyrighted music. Very few videos have been affected by this policy so far but the potential is mindboggling!! Our students and other teachers may begin to see us as the copyright information specialists we are and no longer as the "copyright cops" they have perceived us to be. "There's a new Sheriff in town."

According to a Rolling Stone article, "YouTube Hits the Mute Button as Royalty Fight with Warner Bros. Continues" the policy currently only affects Warner Music Group releases. Videos being muted are tagged with the comment, “This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders. The audio has been disabled.” They further report, "YouTube said in a statement issued after the muting began, 'Now we’ve added an additional choice. Instead of automatically removing the video from YouTube, we give users the option to modify the video by removing the music subject to the copyright claim and post the new version, and many of them are taking that option.'"

Both those who post to and who watch and listen to YouTube will feel the pain. As a consumer of music and video, I empathize with these users and will miss the popular, high-quality audio, but as an educator I am in full support of this policy and hope that it extends to all protect all studio releases. I have agreed before that our copyright law is in need of massive revision but I have also advocated strongly that creators should be allowed to earn a profit from their creations! Adding popular music, purchased or "borrowed," to videos and publishing them for mass consumption without compensation to the creator of that music is, by any reasonable revision of the law, infringement.

As teachers and librarians teaching in "project based" environments, we allow some level of legal (within the confines of the classroom) copyright infringement. Our students do not understand, though, that using an audio clip on their class video project is legal but posting the same clip to YouTube is not. It has been our responsibility to try to explain this concept, but lacking any form of evidence of the illegality by peers or providers on the Web, the explanations have fallen on deaf ears. We have been the nagging, copyright cops. A solid and sincere effort by You Tube, and other video hosting sites, to mute illegal posting of copyrighted music will not only protect creators, but will lend credence to librarians, and others who have assumed a responsibility for informing the public about the laws and attempting to protect creators.

Will this be the end of YouTube and publicly shared videos as we know them? I think not. It will be an obstacle to be hurdled. Many current users will, initially look for other hosting sites or ways to get around the filters. Beware the abusive and pornographic comments being added to every unmoderated blog and discussion group covering this story! Eventually though, this, like many obstacles we face, could make the system stronger and better. I will not attempt to predict specifics of the future, but feel confident that amateur created streaming video will mature and grow as a medium of entertainment and education for years to come.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Linking is legal !

Researching and writing about e-books, haunted by the Clevenger iceberg (another story for another day), my mind is still on the topic of embedded video in blogs. While it appears from my research that this is still an easy debate to argue from both sides, legal precedent seems to allow for this “linking” of video to private blogs and other Websites including MySpace and Facebook pages. Given the research I have done, which I will share below, I feel comfortable, at least for now, “linking” (read: embedding) videos, slideshows, and podcasts into this blog. I admit, my sources are primarily other blogs, but they appear knowledgeable and certainly involved in the debate. I welcome any comments or thoughts in agreement or disagreement regarding the legal or ethical considerations of embedded content in our blogs.

The Citizen Law Media Project explains that “linking to another website does not infringe the copyrights of that site, nor does it give rise to a likelihood of confusion necessary for a federal trademark infringement claim” ("Linking to Copyrighted," 2008). The article continues to describe that “deep linking,” linking to “a particular page within another site (i.e., other than its homepage)” has never been identified by a court as either copyright or trademark infringement. (“Linking”) While off topic, this is comforting information as I create my own directories of favorite links.

Though admitting “there is some uncertainty on this point” the article describes that inline linking or embedding, “placing a line of HTML on your site that so that your webpage displays content directly from another site,” when tried in a recent case in “the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that inline linking does not directly infringe copyright because no copy is made on the site providing the link; the link is just HTML code pointing to the image or other material. See Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google, Inc. , 508 F.3d 1146 (2007). Other courts may or may not follow this reasoning. However, the Ninth Circuit's decision is consistent with the majority of copyright linking cases which have found that linking, whether simple, deep, or inline, does not give rise to liability for copyright infringement. For discussion of these cases, see The Internet Law Treatise” (“Linking”).

“The situation changes when you knowingly link to works that clearly infringe somebody's copyright, like pirated music files or video clips of commercially distributed movies and music videos. In this situation, you might be liable for what is known as "contributory copyright infringement." Contributory copyright infringement occurs by "intentionally inducing or encouraging direct infringement" of a copyrighted work” (“Linking”). Fred vonLohman from the Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees that common sense to avoid commercially distributed media and to respect any rights published or indicated should protect bloggers from potential copyright violation when embedding content (“Linking,” 2008; vonLohman, 2007). On his Website, Christopher Heng points out that YouTube and most media hosting services offer users posting content the choice whether to “enable or disable the EMBED code for their videos. . . In theory, if the owner enables the EMBED code for others to use, it means that they” are willing and even pleased to have others embed their video (2008).

References

Bailey, J. (2007, December 20). Why I embed my images. In Plagiarism Today [PT blog]. Retrieved November 21, 2008, from http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/‌2007/‌12/‌20/‌why-i-embed-my-images/

Heng, C. (2008). Is it okay to post YouTube videos on my website? (copyright question). In The site wizard. Retrieved November 21, 2008, from http://www.thesitewizard.com/‌general/‌embed-youtube-video-copyright-matters.shtml

Howell, D. (2007, July 9). Embedding a headache. In Lawgarithms [blog]. Retrieved November 21, 2008, from http://blogs.zdnet.com/‌Howell/‌?p=146

Linking to copyrighted materials. (2008, June 3). Citizen Law Media Project. Retrieved November 21, 2008, from http://www.citmedialaw.org/‌legal-guide/‌linking-copyrighted-materials

Ross, P. (2008, November 12). Copyright in a free market. In Copyright Alliance [blog]. Retrieved November 21, 2008, from http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/‌2008/‌11/‌copyright-in-a-free-market/

VonLohman, F. (2007, July 9). YouTube embedding and copyright. In Electronic Frontier Foundation [EFF DeepLinks Blog]. Retrieved November 21, 2008, from http://www.eff.org/‌deeplinks/‌2007/‌07/‌youtube-embedding-and-copyright