AP Exec. Doesn't Know AP Has YouTube Account; Goes After AP Affiliate For Using AP Videos
I swear, I thought this was an Onion piece when I first saw it.
Here is another great moment in A.P. history. In its quest to become the RIAA of the newspaper industry, the A.P.’s executives and lawyers are beginning to match their counterparts in the music industry for cluelessness. A country radio station in Tennessee, WTNQ-FM, received a cease-and-desist letter from an A.P. vice president of affiliate relations for posting videos from the A.P.’s official Youtube channel on its Website.
You cannot make this stuff up. Forget for a moment that WTNQ is itself an A.P. affiliate and that the A.P. shouldn’t be harassing its own members. Apparently, nobody told the A.P. executive that the august news organization even has a YouTube channel which the A.P. itself controls, and that someone at the A.P. decided that it is probably a good idea to turn on the video embedding function on so that its videos can spread virally across the Web, along with the ads in the videos.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot wrap my brain around the logic of going after one of your own affiliates, even if you were unaware that they were embedding videos from your YouTube page. Isn't this why companies decide to become affiliates?
Way to go, AP.
the RIAA would go after the station manager's mother..
that's uh...yeah...pretty damn stupid.
It usually happens when one company takes over another. That's not the case here is it?
This is kinda like when a company gets too damn big...and has too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
AP has been supplying video to television stations for a long time. More recently, their videos have been on-line. I've seen them embedded on the tubes for a few years.
What someone at AP doesn't seem to get (and maybe it's just the people in the Affiliate Relations department), is that when you sign up to YouTube you agree that all of your copyrighted content that you allow to be embedded is open for embedding for anyone.
I'm a long time denizen of the LNMC, and I've noticed that while a lot of music content from private users is being yanked down by WMG and the likes, many of the record companies are putting their own music videos up- with ads on 'em. Maybe that's what AP should be doing- attaching advertising to their embeddable video.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Affiliates!? Back in my day, we had affiliates, we called them SLAVES! And they knew to take their whippin's and keep quiet about it! Now you have your INTER-TUBES and your YOU-TUBES and your BOOB-TUBES! It makes me sick! Sick I tellya! Oh for the good old days! Maria Ouspenskaya, now THERE was a LADY! She'd never put a video on the interwebs! And if she did, she'd take her whippin' like she deserved! You kids don't know any RESPECT, that's what it is! Why you're all SPOILED ROTTEN TO THE CORE! You don't show proper respect to someone with a Bachelor Degree in Business from Hearst College! It reminds me of the time I took the ferry to Morganville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe, so I took the ferry to Morganville, which is what we called Shelbyville at the time...
"The Good and Great Must Ever Shun, That Reckless and Abandoned One
Who Stoops to Perpetrate a Pun," Lewis Carroll, 'The Three Voices.'
At first I thought you were doing the old Dana Carvey character from SNL("Flibbetyflobbity floo! In my day we didn't need seatbelts...we just went flying through the windows!"). But then I alwys suspected that The Simpsons ripped that off from SNL.
That said, you pulled it off.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
fuckin funny as hell!
And I curse you for makin orange juice come outta my nasals.
Morans!
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Sometimes you just can't fix stupid.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
My reaction was exactly the same as Nicole's when I first read this. It has to be a joke, right? Late April Fools maybe?
No, the AP just doesn't get the tubes.
I have seen comments on this story that say the AP is doubly stupid because registering for their video content is free.
If this is the best of our "Fourth Estate", we're doomed.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples, promising liberty and justice for all
"the series of tubes" baffling to the geniuses of the old media.
Maybe management should put their 12 year old children on the Executive Steering Committee.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
for the University of Texas who sue anybody using the image of a steer
fro stealing the "intellectual property" of the University of Texas.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
from a murdicKKK organization?
________________
common sense matters as much as truth
Just as well that exec didn't go into law enforcement. He'd have the precincts getting into gunfights with each other.
Or football. He'd have everyone sack his own QB.
Or porn. He'd... Actually, he'd probably be pretty good at managing porn stars.
is pretty common these days in Murica' Da Bootyfull.
the Tech bots are pretty clueless about a lot of things also.
our radio station has to pay an extra fee to AP for running its video news on our web site.
So the station pays over $6K a year for text/wire service ONLY (more $$$ if we want video or sound with the text)
And now over $5K for the video service on the web site. $11K annually for basically the same stories.
Has anyone mentioned the fact that AP fees go up *every* year - and somewhere between 5-15% depending on your market size?
AP is the second greatest scam ever created - the first is cable television.
Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.
This COULD be legit.
1) This radio station has an existing contract with AP, meaning they are legally bound to certain terms and conditions that do not apply to 'normal people'.
2) If that contract has clauses that limit the ways in which the affiliate can reference/use AP content, they may very well be in violation of the contract they signed with AP.
Sure it's absurd that AP would put stricter limits on its affiliates than on non-affiliates... but this radio station may very well be in the wrong here.
Just because it's possible doesn't always make it right.
Posting the video on YouTube and enabling the embedding function implies that you're okay with the video being, you know, embedded. The user is the one with the control to do that, so whether he likes it or not, A.P. implicitly gave the right to embed that video to one and all.
He should have checked before he shot his mouth off.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
*See comment 31
I can't believe this...everyone knows that posting a video on YouTube makes it public domain and easy to embed. Jeez...why post it if you don't want it to be seen?
Beginner Marathon Guide
Posting a video on YouTube does NOT make it public domain.
Assuming that you are posting a video that you have legal right to, you can post it on YouTube as an embeddable video. If you do so, you are agreeing that others can embed your video on their website. You do NOT give up copyright.
But enabling the embed feature does give permission for other users to embed the video. That's the whole IDEA of the feature. If this guy doesn't understand that, or how to check if it's enabled, then he ought to talk to someone in his company who DOES get the web, and do it before he pulls this silly crap.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
You're confusing the feature's idea, a function of remote broadcasting, with permission of using that content. These are two distinctly different things. Youtube is a private business, and gives the veil of similarity to promote its business (dense boilerplate next to the agreement check box). Permission for how that content is used still goes back to the owner. A.P. made a goof, and Youtube operates dubiously.
Clearly what we've got here in an exec who knows nothing about YouTube, and little more about the web. He saw the video and instantly assumed it was stolen - without clicking through to check the YT page. This tells me the guy is a TOTAL N00BOMGLOL!!!
People who don't know anything about the intertoobs should really stay out. They just end up looking like complete asshats.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
The surprise is that the goober figured out how to use the intertoobs to find the video in the first place. Must have gotten to the affiliate site by accident trying to find the "big hooters" chatroom.
Sure looks that way to me.
when the people who are supposed to tell you what's going on are suing people for trying to tell you what's going on.
I may be wrong but I would still be willing to bet that the idiot who did this makes some pretty good change and thankfuly for him or her has a job that probably makes lots of money, unlike myself and millions of others who can only wish to not only make so much but screw up so bad and still get the big paycheck! I could be wrong and the previous statement was quite long but wtf do I know:).
The love you take is equal to the love you make. John Lennon Paul Mc Cartney
This A.P. affiliate manager has G.M. disease, as this is a symptom of A.P. encountering its tipping point of a disruption phase. The A.P. affiliate manager is in charge of making more revenue from affiliates, and to check that affiliates are using A.P. content according to contract conditions. So, the A.P. man sees this as a chance to charge the affiliate for a new format, internet broadcast. This WTNQ rep should have known he was entering a grey zone when he chose to embed, if their contract has no conditions for it. Of course, this is not seeing the forest because you're too close to the trees. I expect the outcome will be that A.P. will stop offering embed codes.
I do agree that this is ridiculous in almost every sense and that they are just being complete jackasses, BUT - and I obviously don't have the contract to look at - but IF it is indeed in their contract as an affiliate that they cannot post the videos, then they are indeed in breech of that contract and committing a violation. You and I and every other non-associated member of society may be able to do whatever we want with the video, but I have no contract. I didn't sign that I could not do so. So, it matters not if it is a violation to you or I; it can still be for them. Ex: I worked for a company in which we were not allowed to accept gifts from clients. Why? because I signed a contract agreeing to that. Obviously, anybody else in the world would be able to accept gifts from anybody who offers them one. But I signed a contract stating that I would not do so from that particular party. Again, I do agree that they completely blew it out of proportion and are shooting themselves in the foot to boot, but they may still be technically correct.
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