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Adverts Mysteriously Appended to YouTube Clips

hey0you0guy writes "For the past few months copyrighted clips of shows have been edited to include advertisements for Gawker Media. These clips have been uploaded to the video sharing site YouTube by a user going by the handle Belowtheradar. These clips are then being linked to by Gawker itself: 'Gawker.com, for example, on Thursday featured a YouTube clip from ABC's talk show The View. At the beginning of the video, there is an ad for Gawker. On Wednesday, Valleywag posted a link to a video of television satirist Stephen Colbert talking about Wikipedia. At the beginning of that video there is an ad for Valleywag, a blog dedicated to Silicon Valley gossip.' CNet contacted the copyright holders for the videos (which range from NBC to Apple), and mostly received responses of 'we're looking into it.' At least two groups did confirm they did not give permission for this kind of advertisement."

12 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Adverts Mysteriously Appear in Inbox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    n/m

  2. it is mysterious by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Funny

    i wonder how they got there. i wonder if anyone will ever know. maybe leonard nimoy will do a show about it.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  3. Will only get worse by daeg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem will only get worse as (a) YouTube starts paying users to upload content (b) users keep uploading unauthorized copies of shows and (c) YouTube starts needing to generate profits and adds more advertisements such as pre- and post-stream ads.

    Why is this a problem? Now, instead of simply a DMCA takedown notice, YouTube is far more liable for damages because they made a direct profit off of the usage of unauthorized content. The users are more liable, too, since they will make a profit from YouTube.

  4. Give them some credit by TodMinuit · · Score: 5, Funny

    They didn't cause a bomb scare.

    --
    I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
  5. Re:Probably... by Hijacked+Public · · Score: 5, Interesting

    but wouldnt think they'd gunk up a free vid site


    Why would you think gunking up a free video site would give an advertiser pause? The only thing stopping them from physically grabbing your eyeballs and pointing them at their ads is that that kind of thing is illegal in most places.

    --
    "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
  6. Oh noes by Ravear · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm in ur tube... advertizing ur vid3oz

  7. Like YouTube at the Micro Level by N8F8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Playing Devil's advocate I'd say this is a smaller scale version of what YouTube itself did. YouTube advertised itself with "borrowed" content to become famous and increase net value.

    --
    "God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
    1. Re:Like YouTube at the Micro Level by The+Ultimate+Fartkno · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hey, you! You with the fancy logic and common sense! You get away from here with all that nonsense! This is Slashdot, fella, and we don't need someone coming around here and muddying up the message. YouTube runs on kitten farts and moonbeams, not MONEY! It represents the death of Big Entertainment and NOTHING ELSE! Power to the open-sourced people and death to the MPAA! Forget your shoveled-out Hollywood crap like Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men, the future of entertainment is in the hands of the masses and we are the future! Ten thousand videos of tweenage girls singing "Fergalicious" into soup ladles can't be wrong!

      FREEEEDOOOOMMMM!!

  8. Read the terms, please by Gopal.V · · Score: 4, Informative

    I assume a lot of people just click through the terms and conditions, but as a perpetual cynic (and coming from a family of legal folk), I generally have a quick read through. Here's an interesting excerpt from youtube terms

    For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successor's) business,

    So, big surprise ! They've got a derievative work with an ad all over it. And I asked a lawyer. She said that that's pretty standard boilerplate, except hardly anyone modifies your content to include ads. The delivery of ads has been traditionally out of band of the content stream, but this makes sense.

  9. Re:New spam? by SQLGuru · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Certain spam *DOES* piggy back on legitimate e-mail.

    Taken from some forwarded jokes.

    Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com/

    Do You Yahoo!?
      Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com/
    Layne
  10. A couple of things... by Evro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1) Where's the "mysterious" part? Someone's putting ads into the clip before uploading them. Nothing "mysterious."

    2) Appending means they're being tacked onto the end. If they're being added at the beginning, they're being prepended. Next time save the embarrassment and just say "added."

    --
    rooooar
    1. Re:A couple of things... by Aladrin · · Score: 4, Informative

      You need a better dictionary.

      http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prepend
      http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/append

      Yes, prepend is 'slang' as are all new words before they get officially adopted.

      Yes, append can mean 'attach' and not just to the end.

      But don't forget you're on a nerd site and any programmer worth his salt will immediately think 'add to the end of' if you say 'append'.

      You get a few points for the technicality, but you lose quite a few more for not speaking the local lingo.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM