Imeem Removes Fan Vids Along With All UGV
YouTube’s January 2009 Massacre hit many vidders using that video sharing site particularly hard because their Content ID system can not decipher between a copyright violation and a fair use of the original material. Last week fannish vidders found themselves caught in the midst of yet another online video massacre. Much of the vidding community had been using the media sharing site imeem which, until recently, had been a safe space for them to post fan works and share in fan communities. But imeem recently announced they were ’simplifying’ their website and deleting all use- generated video (UGV), again leaving vidders without a community to upload and share their works. Imeem is now “de-emphasizing” UGV because of costs and concerns over their return on investment (ROI). They say “Simply put, there’s no ROI for us in UGV.”
We feel this is an insult to the vidding and other photo/video communities that helped build imeem as a service. We think that to simply jettison user generated creative works in this way due to profit margins is shameful and abhorrent.
The end of the vidding community on imeem does not just stop with the loss of the vids but also a deletion of all comments and playlists, loss of the cumulative hit counts and vidding network disruptions. To add insult to injury, imeem continues to prohibit users from downloading their own content. Some of the startling experiences and over-all mistreatment of content producers are documented here.
What this means for our blog is that many of our favorite vids will be offline until they can be relocated to other sites. Many of our favorites will be on blip.tv since they’ve implemented a fair use policy, this despite their recent vidder-targeted takedowns for posting “copyrighted material”. Others will be moving to BAM. A comparison of the two sites’ hosting capacities is posted here.
In caution to vidders transitioning away from imeem, Morgan Dawn has outlined the copyright policies of various video services. She adds “how they will handle the transformative nature of fan vids is still anyone’s guess.”
Please be patient with us as we try to find the new location of vids we have posted here over the past few months and update our posts accordingly. If you’ve found a vid’s new digital home, please let us know!
Category: News