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Sunday, August 20, 2006

Washington Post wants to own your video


The Washington Post has a Video Mash-Up contest happening where you answer questions from Post political reporter Dana Milbank::
"Welcome to the washingtonpost.com Video Mash-Up, where our readers have the opportunity to create their own interview clips opposite Post political reporter Dana Milbank. We provide the questions, you provide the answers!"
Sounds like fun until you get to the Terms and Conditions:
(1) WPNI will make available to User on its Web site, located at [URL](the "Site"), a video that contains one-half of an interview with a celebrity. User may then splice the video with footage of him/herself, or a friend or associate, participating in the other half of the interview ("Recording"). After completion of the Recording, the User must submit the Recording to WPNI.
"...the User must submit the Recording to WPNI"

What is up with that? In this meme crazy world of YouTube, I would think that the Washington Post would want to have their videos posted to as many sites as possible, AND viewed as much as possible.

Now lets take a look at what happens to your rights after you agree and upload your video:
(4) User agrees to grant and assign all right, title and interest in the Recording to WPNI.
Wrong again.

Take a look at the Terms of Service over at Blip.tv, which says in part:
Blip.tv does not claim ownership of the materials you post, upload, input or submit to the Blip.tv site.
That's the way to do it.