I normally recommend YouTube to people (and was even going to have a bit on them in my first issue of Exploring Squarespace) because it’s really an easy way to add video to your site. After reading the following from a Boing Boing post regarding YouTube’s new terms and conditions though, I don’t think I’ll be recommending them further.
…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…
2 replies on “There Goes YouTube! Cya Laters!”
I read something similar at http://www.zaadz.com yesterday. In the fine print.
I took a gander at Zaadz.com Terms of Use and I spotted the following in theirs.
"(NOTE: All the above means is that you’re giving us the right to display your content on our site. We tried to delete it but our attorneys made us keep that part in there. Unlike other sites, you are NOT granting us rights for anything else!!!)"
That’s the key thing and an ongoing debate with YouTube’s interpretation. If all it implies is that they are allowed to display your content on their site, then that’s probably fine. If it means they "own" your content then that’s something completely different.
I mean even YouTube says they don’t own your content yet it’s still giving them free access to do whatever they want with it UNTIL you remove the content from their site. So if they go and use it without your permission for some ad campaign (which they would have the right to do so), you can only remove the content and stop their ad campaign after the fact. I find this absurd because they could potentially makes tons of money off your video and you’d get nothing in return.
I think I might start recommending services like Camtix (www.camtix.com) instead. You’d have to pay for the dedicated media hosting but at least you’d retain ownership of your videos.