Fedora TV, the video quandary, and a request for advice (fwd)

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2008, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:

>>  4. Users should be able to easily specify licensing of the videos.
>
> What licenses would we use? What ones would be verbotten?

This is a simple policy question.  We *will* want "open video" -- that 
much we know.  Licensing will come later.

> Do we have a screening process before the videos go up to make sure
> that they are related to Fedora and not someone trying to use it as a
> gnu porn upload site?

I think we'll have to if we do our own storage.  Vaniv had a mechanism for 
this, which wasn't great, but it was okay.  In the long run, I foresee a 
SIG of video folks helping with this.

> And from watching the daily MPAA/RIAA etc letters to the University..
> what is the legal group that gets these subpoenas and evidence
> preservation? Especially when someone puts up a 20 minute cut from
> BladeRunner with some "commentary" to try and say it is a reasonable
> quote on how Free Software should work. (Or they use a 20 second cut
> and the MPAA still sends a takedown notice/subpeona/DMCA/ etc.) And
> whether or not a 2 second music excerpt is allowed under copyright
> law.. who gets stuck with the lawyers bill dealing with the lawsuit
> from whoever currently 'owns' BabyGotBack.

And this is why human filters will be required.  The nice thing: even if 
we are *very* successful, I think we'll be looking at a limited amount of 
content.  If the problem is that the filterers are moving too slowly 
because we've got too much content, that's a good problem to have.

> Hopefully these are things that can be said "duh" about.. but it would
> be something that would make mirrors more available if they didn't
> have to worry about the legal lawsuit for aiding and abetting (or
> whatever gets MPAA lawyers salivating).

Well, then, maybe the mirrors idea is worth pursuing.

> The issue I see with Archive.org is that they must be dieing under
> network/storage bills these days. The amount of movie and music I see
> streaming to our university is pretty high. My guess is that the
> flakiness is that they are having to pair back what they can offer
> because the costs are going up... or what links they do have are
> saturated and they are not in a position to upscale.

Yeah.  That's my take too.  I only wish I could get into a conversation 
with them about it.

--g

-- 
Greg DeKoenigsberg
Community Development Manager
Red Hat, Inc. :: 1-919-754-4255
"To whomsoever much hath been given...
...from him much shall be asked"