Hello all!
Just wanted to give you some updates on what’s going on with me lately.
Top of the list, I got married! My new wife, Kimberley, is a beautiful, wonderful woman. She is perfectly suited to me. We are embarking on life’s journey together, and it should be a fun ride.
Second, my MS has improved. Treatment is apparently working. The last MRIs showed shrinkage of the lesions. Good news there!
The career is picking up. Kim and I have a couple of films lined up and are picking up some other side work. We are also moving towards getting our own business set up doing video production. Let’s hope it goes well.
Lastly, I’ve resolved to start blogging more. It will mostly be filmmaking technology and technology that can be adapted for filmmaking. Let’s see how it goes!
I’ve been tweaking my site a bit and have enabled a touch device enabled version. It supports the following user agents for those that are interested: android, aspen, blackberry9500, blackberry9530, cupcake, dream, incognito, iphone, ipod, opera mini, webmate, webos.
I also changed the logo graphic and some fonts. In line with some of the chatter I’ve been a part of on Twitter, I’ve removed the sIFR text I was using. This allows all browsers to see my site as intended.
What does this mean? For most people, nothing. The site will run and look pretty much as it always has. For those with the touch devices, there will be a, in my opinion, superior view of the content.
I have one last thing to do and that’s to get the touch enabled version to show my portfolio as the home page instead of the blog.
Take a look and let me know what you think.
Well, they didn’t say I was right but, then again, they didn’t say I was wrong either.
The video now plays fine but there is an ad to purchase the song as an overlay on the video. Seems this is the way they handle this now.
This is fine with me. It was just a fun little video and if the artist makes a couple of sales, I’m fine with that.
The only problem is only the record companies are likely to see any of the revenue generated by these sorts of ads.
To sum up: this sort of monetizing is good for the record companies, OK for consumers and likely bad for the artists.
I recently found out that a video I assembled of Matt Forcum from his wedding reception had the audio disabled because of copyright violation. The song is the one played at the reception, and was at that time covered by a BMI/ASCAP performance license.
It was just a silly little video, just for fun. I found this notice on it:
Your video, More Matt Forcum Madness!!!, may have audio content from Cotton-Eye Joe by Rednex that is owned or licensed by WMG.
As a result, your video is blocked worldwide.
It is ridiculous that this would be blocked! The video can be seen in the US with the audio removed. Anywhere else, you can’t even see the video! For the most part, I don’t care. However, there are principles at stake.
YouTube gives you this option:
Use AudioSwap to replace the audio in your video with a track from our library of prelicensed songs. After you swap, your video will be available globally.
Since I feel, after a bit of reading, that my use falls within the Fair Use Doctrine, I filed a dispute. The text from the form is below:
User Name: banoe
Video ID:
(The video with the copyright claim) x_6PdMEowcw
Select the reason for your dispute:
2. This video uses copyrighted material in a manner that does not require approval of the copyright holder. It is a fair use under copyright law.
The use is not for profit and will not effect the potential market for the protected work.
Signature: Brett A. Noe
Statement of Good Faith: I have a good faith belief that the material was disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification, and that I am not intentionally abusing this dispute process.
I’m hoping this gets resolved in my favor.
Any legal minds are welcome to comment.