Re: [Harp-L] Videos - - SPAH 2014

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

That's up to the individuals who shot the video. Individual initiative rules when it comes to both photos and video shot at and in connection with the SPAH convention.

Once upon a time SPAH made VHS videotapes of its Friday and Saturday concerts and sold them to members.

Then a former board member nearly bankrupted the organization with series of meritless lawsuits against SPAH over ownership of the tapes.

Then copyright owners - usually large, powerful corporations - started suing individuals for obscene amounts of money in an attempt to frighten people into buying what they'd been getting for free online. SPAH realized that it had a dangerous exposure. This is especially true for video. While standard licensing mechanisms exist for using copyright compositions in print and sound recordings, none exist for video - it's the wild west and the strong and brutal rule.

Let's say you put up your own rendition of, say, the Beatles' "Love Me Do", on Youtube. Let's say that 500,000 people view it (unlikely, I know, but go with me on this). Sony/ATV or whoever owns Northern Songs nowadays sends you a strongly worded letter, saying that you owe them 10 cents for every viewing, which comes to $50,000. Remember, you didn't make a dime from putting up your amateur rendition, and you don't have a spare $50,000 lying around. Fighting them in court will be muy expensive as well. Ouch.

For awhile SPAH tried to actively discourage recording at performances to limit its legal exposure, However, once smartphones became ubiquitous, preventing concert attendees from making video recordings became impossible.

Exposure aside, recording and then editing video takes a lot of resources. People do ask why we don't video all the seminars. Let's see four concurrent seminars for 5 or 6 hours each of four days - that's up to 96 hours of shooting by at least four people, then all the back end editing. Once the results were made available, how many people would buy or even look at it? Experience says very few; it's not worth the effort.

That's not to say that volunteer video could not be coordinated and the most interesting parts edited into something that could benefit the performers (providing they agree; not all do), SPAH, and people who either want to re-experience something or just gain some knowledge or enjoyment from what they could not experience directly.

Any volunteers?

W~

Winslow Yerxa
President, SPAH, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica
Producer, the Harmonica Collective
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool Community Music School


________________________________
From: Harmonicology [Neil Ashby] <harmonicology@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 3:27 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Videos - - SPAH 2014


So far on YouTube then there appears to be just one "Blow Off" video and three videos of harmonica group performance and 44 seconds of PT Gazell.

Are more SPAH 2014 videos being prepared for YouTube?

/Neil