Thank you for your invitation. I have two reservations, regarding item (5c) in the partnership agreement:The representative of the Sacramento Bee replied:5. Representations and Warranties. You represent and warrant that (c) the Material does not and will not infringe on any third party's copyright, patent, trademark, trade secrets, proprietary rights of publicity or privacy, or other legal rights,Reservation 1 is that some YouTube videos I've posted in the past (uploaded by others) have subsequently been pulled off of YouTube because of copyright infringements. I (and others) no doubt thought we had 'fair use' of the material, but we apparently were wrong. Thus, any representations I might have made at the time to the Sacramento Bee, or others, about the material would have been wrong. A perfect example in the news from the last several days are the many 'Hitler' Downfall videos, two of which I posted, and which now are in the process of being yanked.
Reservation 2 is that some YouTube videos I've uploaded fairly-recently (of other people's work, and subsequently posted on my blog) may infringe on the copyrights of others. There seems to be a bit of a Wild West aspect regarding the YouTube frontier, and many artists will tolerate infringing material if they believe they have more to gain by the exposure. There's a conspiracy of silence about all this, however, and where the lines really are located in practice is unclear. Nevertheless, any representations I might make to the Sacramento Bee regarding the material would either be false, or suspect, and certainly open to challenge, should artists care to make a challenge.
At the moment, I'm thinking maybe it's better to decline participation, unless the Sacramento Bee is similarly willing to experiment.
Thanks for the reply. We’ve run into some of the same issues with our own Bee blogs. I don’t have a problem with the way your blog has introduced YouTube into various posts … you seem to have fun with them (like the headline over the ‘Glee’ video) and not claiming this is your content. Our own attorney has advised us not to post such things to Bee blogs, but acknowledges it’s murky territory and has left the final decision to the top editors at The Bee … and some of our bloggers are doing some of the same things you are doing. In short, we are willing to experiment here, and we don’t have a problem with what you are doing. In fact, we love the blog, think it is well written, and both insightful and funny (something our best writers here at the Bee struggle with each day).So, the answer seems to be basically no one knows anything for sure (except maybe the lawyers, and maybe not even them). In that case, the blogger probes into the darkness, like an interstellar pioneer, until something else from beyond the galactic core probes back, and then you decide what to do (Run Away! Phasers On Full!)
YouTube is a real conundrum for people. The artists themselves seem to be conflicted, and probably have one opinion on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and an altogether different opinion on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday (on Sunday, they just don't know). Like they say, hard cases make bad law.
I like the little bit of flattery. Like they say, flattery will get you everywhere! And as I've mentioned, the Sacramento Bee likely has more to gain from the proposed arrangement than the individual bloggers do, since it plugs holes in their coverage of the community and should require little maintenance. Promises to the bloggers of potentially-increased readership are unlikely to be met, just because the Internet keeps expanding all the time. If the number of readers doesn't keep up with the Internet's growth, someone is bound to be disappointed. But, once again, no one knows anything for sure.
...Except maybe the lawyers, and no one is that keen to talk to them anyway.
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