Update 1: 2015-03-05 (See Below)
Today Rosie Lord of the Daily Mail contacted me (see below) asking if they could use a video that I had posted under a Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike) License on Vimeo. I replied that this wasn’t so easy as the video contained background music that was licensed for non-commercial use only, but I would be willing to send them the original video w/o the music and grant them the desired licence for “perpetual” (de facto unlimited) use for 35 pounds (my suggestion based on the rate for local newspapers) license fee. To be honest, I was astounded that what I had learned to be the “gutter press” would even care to ask before publishing stuff. Was I mistaken? Of course not. I never got a reply. Instead they just took the video, edited it (getting rid of a beautiful view of the Porta Nigra) and put it on-line on their website. No money for the person who shot the video–my name is given at least (see screen shot). Nothing for the musician whose music is in the background. Yes, it probably qualifies as a quote from the web. I shouldn’t complain, should I? After all, I am confirmed in my disgust for the yellow press. But why did they ask in the first place? Simple: If you agree to give them the stuff for free and forever–irrevocably–, and for their offshoot channels as well, you warrant that you have the full copy- and usage rights. So, if a musician like the one bamboozled by the publication, comes and wants money, they can send them to you. Not only do they want owt fer nowt. They also want to pass the buck to others if things go wrong (see below). Clever people they are for sure. Und deswegen, unter anderem, ist und bleibt ein Drecksblatt eben ein Drecksblatt.
I won’t post the link to the article here. Reference:
Williams, Amanda. “Red Statue of Karl Marx Gifted to City of Gloucester Is Hidden Away.” Mailonline. 4 Mar. 2015. Web.
[Screenshot on the Website of The Daily Mail, cf. Williams]
[The very kind phishing message by Rosie Lord.]
[Rules and Regulations – Passing the Buck]
Update 1 (2015-03-05):
Rebecca Hutson (I believe she is Director of Video at MailOnline) contacted me today saying that they have not received my email to the video editor (see above), that she had learned about my suggestion from my blog post and that they would like to pay a license fee of 35 pounds and swap the video they have on their website for the original file (thereby getting rid of the problem of the background music which is licensed under a CC-BY-NC-SA license). I agreed and uploaded the original video for the Daily Mail to download and use (and mentioned that I don’t own the rights to the art installation or the sounds you could hear in front of Porta Nigra on the day I took the video).
Let’s see: If they pay a license fee, is this still “freebooting”? Not any longer. Is posting without prior clearance poor style? In most cases, I’d think it is. Is my ranting about poor style poor style, too? Maybe. Am I biased? Yes.
