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MyHeavy Stealing Works Without Permission

spreadthemedia.org — MyHeavy, another YouTube wannabe, has been stealing content from web video producers and re-posting the videos without permission to profit from major ad sales.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 4, 2007

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  • f0dder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19sure.. we obey copyrights except when it comes to our torrents and mp3's lol
  • jeffgreco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Fantastic, it's the eBaums World of YouTubes. This sort of thing is the dark side of the lack of copyright protection on the web.
  • unidentified, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13I pirate movies, programs, games, and e-books. How could I judge this guy? I'm no better than him.
  • Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Yeah someone has to stop ebaumsworld before... wait who is stealing what again?

    Everything is stolen these days. I mean a fax machine is just a waffle iron with a phone glued to it.
  • z00k, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9"And what are we going to do about it? Were going to give them publicity!!!"

    Yeah, How about everyone rush to their site... on the count of 3... Hopefully their ad revenue can pay for the bandwidth.
  • Darthmalt, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10f0dder. Big difference between d/ling a song to listen to and downloading a video, putting it on your site, slapping ads all over it, and making money from it.
  • gmprunner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6For shame...

    @wlight,

    "blood, sweat, tears"? What kind of videos are you making?
  • Al3x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I love how on break or ebaums, you can see the watermarked ad in the corner when they rip it off. It's a joke. I agree about how making $ off of stealing stuff from other sites is just pathetic.
  • 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10 So it's alright to "steal' music or videos or software when it's from companies but not alright when it's from morons with too much time on their hands?
  • f0dder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@Darthmalt
    No there isnt. Link a torrent site that's not full of ads.
  • missbhavens, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I've had my feed heisted before but I've never been quite as angry as I am this time. Is it the flagrancy of their actions? Is it the skeezy girls with wings that flank and dwarf my videos? Is it the mondo-pre-roll for Cingular? Is it the watermark? Is it the re-sizing? Is it the "steal this" button? Is it the lack of linkback? It's all of it. It's really, really bad behavior and they've set a rotten precedent for themselves. And they'd better get their acts together and fix this. Not. Cool.
  • riplikethat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3MySpace + YouTube = MyHeavy

    Lame.
  • Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Reminds me of Ebaums World.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Tenlow - ever tried making waffles with one though??
  • BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I love the way that any discussion of copyright law brings 3 million RIAA shills out of the woodwork to spam the hell out of the subject.

    Let's be clear: When you see one of the content producers here insisting that malware be installed on other people's computers, on suing twelve-year-old children, and on having functionality removed from OTHER PEOPLE'S bought-and-paid-for digital devices, then you can draw any kind of parallel - but you most likely won't see creative, productive people doing that.

    Not to mention bullying hardware and software corporations into designing defects into their (OUR) products, moving in questionable ways regarding lobbying and abusing the US's diplomatic standing to try and bully foreign governments too.

    We're talking about legitimate copyright holders defending their IP here, not lunatics trying to tie up the *world's* technological future so they can find an excuse to give the shareholders and artists for where the profits went other than "our greed and failures".

    ...and if you can't tell the difference between the Machiavellian plots of a bunch of publishers, and the artists themselves, then that's your problem.

    Shills.
  • Dustyb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5How come we get upset about people stealing their videos online? Yet we download album after album off Limewire, or BitTorrent or what have you without a second thought?
  • JudgeMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@JeremyBanks

    Well, I know this is a comment system and I don't want to make it into a discussion but seriously? Yea right. Go to any torrent site. How many ads are on there? And how many p2p programs have ads jammed into any corner they'll fit? And if you try and say that the revenue just goes to sustaining the servers, well that can hardly be proven and the same can be said for this place.

    The only difference I see here is the original content wasn't being sold. So it's not money directly out of the original owners pockets except the hotlinking, something easily protected from (hell you can even have a little fun by changing the content they are linking to. Imagine an anti myheavy video on myheavy itself.).

    You dont need to RUN those kinds of sites. if you use em it's enough. It's no different, if it can even be compared.
  • ClayRobeson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, Amandaaa, some content from my webshow is there without anyone on my staff putting it there, and with absolutely no adherence to the Creative Commons licence under which it was produced. And I don't think I'm the only one that this is happening to by the looks of this thread. They're making money off of something I produced without crediting me for it, in violation of the license under which it was produced. Maybe I don't have any idea about how the company is run, but I know they don't have my permission to have my sketches there, but there they are.
  • PeTeRZz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I HATE heavy. Especially when Break redirects to them >
  • ClayRobeson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@broomett

    Dude, I never said we were GOOD. I just said our stuff was posted in violation of the Creative Commons license. Most of network TV isn't good, but they still get copyright protections.
  • Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Let me clarify that... Yes, because a minority on Digg works in the media industry?
  • drjekelmrhyde, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@ the submitter of this THANX I never heard of this site till now
  • Cirne, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Thievery and breaking of copyright contract should be compensated. There's no incentive for others to not do this again and breaking of contract is a wrong against the one holding the contract.
  • caseymckinnon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I absolutely agree. I posted the notification e-mail I sent to them on my blog: http://www.galacticast.com/2007/01/03/on-notice-myheavycom/

    This should indeed be compensated.
  • juxtapose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Amandaa:
    I don't think you know how your company is run. Apparently MyHeavy is deep linking into Blip.tv. I know because I took down some of my videos on Blip.tv and they instantaneously disappeared on MyHeavy. Now it seems if I post on Blip I am posting on your site as well do I have a choice in this. Not only are you using my content against my license but you are also stealing bandwidth from Blip.tv. Blip.tv shares its ad revenue with its content providers are you.
  • glitchp-udd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2it's odd that some have chosen to compare what heavy is doing to an individual user downloading an mp3 (which is, indeed, illegal).

    but for the two to be equal, i would have to download an mp3 without permission, rebrand it as if i own and created it, and then sell it in an open manner. even allofmp3 doesn't go that far....
  • duzins, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The point is that my videos didn't have my name, my link to my actual site, nothing. MyHeavy profited at my expense. I'm the one who stayed up late and wrote up what I wanted to say, researched sites, filmed and refilmed myself, edited, etc all of my videos yet only Heavy profited. That's what sucked...
  • ClayRobeson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, since they don't provide any information about who linked it other than the fact that it comes from blip.tv, the fault lies with them. If they don't want to take the blame, then they should have some way of identifying who uploaded it so I can ask THEM to take it down.

    And, if you read the subject of this post, it's about MYheavy... not Heavy. There's a big huge difference I hear.
  • steveelbows, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I dont know why some people have such a problem understanding why this is bad, and why the video creators are perfectly entitled to get angry and feel ripped off.

    For a start can we please distinguish between users/viewers rights, and the right to make profit. The spirit of creative commons is simple, most of their licenses are designed to give viewers plenty of rights, but not to give people the right to commercially profit off the work. Why should they profit when the original creator does not? Do you think it would be fair enough if a TV station decided to air a whole series of videos from someone without asking first? Do you think its acceptable for someone to sell DVDs full of peoples videos without obtaining their permission? We arent just talking about videos where someone spends a few minutes of their life talking into a camera, but regular shows that can be fulltime work for those behind them.

    Now it is a wonderful things that there are some types of videos and video creators who just want their work to be seen by as many people as possible, and dont care how much it spreads virally, gets rehosted etc etc. But its a terrible thing to assume that everyone feels that way about their work, and it doesnt help that entities like myheavy are clearly funded with big dollars, and want to make a profit from others work without the creator opting in. This isnt the same as youtube, because people actively decide to use youtube to host their videos, youtube dont just decide to make their content look more impressive by leeching millions of videos from the competition.

    If everyone had the attitude that this is all irrelevent and for people to stop whinging, then you can look forward to a future where there is no quality content that people spend all day working on. The same would be true for holywood & television & the music business if absolutely everyone was pirating all of this stuff, and nobody ever bought it. But traditional piracy doesnt go that far, it causes them some losses, but they still have many revenue streams and people willing to pay. Video on the net hasnt reached that level yet, there are many struggling creators who make no money at all yet, is it fair that they should just sit back and watch others profiting from their work before the creator ever gets a cent? I think not.

    As I said earlier, there are plenty of people making video who arent looking to make money from it, they may be more interested in as many people in the world seeing their stuff as possible. Good, thats nice, but it should have no bearing on the moral rights of those who want to do this video creation stuff as their main job, and thus hope to at least make a few bucks off it now and again.

    This stuff with vido is very similar to whats been happening with blogs and the evil splogging phenomenon. Its one thing to live by the mantra that 'information wants to be free', but I dont think that holds much water when free really means 'free to exploit for profit'. Thats not what it should mean, not what a lot of people spent time creating Creative Commons licencing systems intended, and the myth that 'everyone on the net downloads copyrighted music, films etc' fails to take account of the fact that there are a heck of a lot of different sorts of people using the net these days, you cant assume everyones a pirate. Yes these issues will occasionally lead to double-standards, its good to debate it, but Im surprised by how many people are apologists for the commercial leeches we are discussing here.
  • duzins, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Where's the link to the vlogger's page? That's the problem.
  • drewolanoff, on 06/10/2008, -0/+2SOAB! I am very careful where I upload content and I would never upload anything to this piece of crap site.
  • ClayRobeson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Spreading something around the internet is one thing.

    Making money off of someone else's work is another.
  • Cirne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Amandaaa:

    I put up a video on my blip.tv site Wednesday night. And a few hours later I saw it on MyHeavy.com:

    http://tinyurl.com/yxd5t4

    I didn't upload it there or request to have it put up there. And I doubt someone saw that video -- just a test of using my T-Mobile SDA smartphone -- saw the video and thought it would be cool upload it on MyHeavy.com. It's quite probable blip.tv videos are automatically being fed by MyHeavy.com into their player without regard to license.
  • caseymckinnon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You think these video producers are morons? Do you realize that Diggnation is one of the shows being infringed upon?
  • storstygg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just did an Alexa search on MyHeavy --- according to that, if you are going to try to sue them for your fair share of revenue, they owe you each $.0001.
  • richardshow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Makes you wonder how some people sleep at night? Lots of drugs I suppose.
  • fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3The difference: You download song/software to your computer without paying for it, you have profit from the $X.yz you didn't spend to purchase it. You download same but put it on a website and place adds, you make money off the stuff you already didn't pay for. Either way, you come out ahead financially.

    (And don't give me this "try before you buy" *****. Music you can preview on the radio or the band's website. Games always have demo versions. You actually care about the artist/programmer, then put your money where your mouth is and pay for their work.)
  • caseymckinnon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I don't know about wlight, but I know that we (Galacticast) spend at least 50 hours/week making our weekly videos...
  • Amandaaa, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I worked at heavy and I can tell you from experience that Heavy wouldn't take content and call it their own. Most of the content on heavy.com is created by heavy such as behind the music that sucks and others. Personally I helped create a handful of the ads on the site. A lot of times the advertisers would buy specific channels on the site and play their videos within these channels or even host contests and such. Heavy.com has never made an attempt to steal anything because they have enough advertisers and content so they don't have to.

    If I take a video that I like...and put it on YouTube to show everyone, there's nothing wrong with that. If Videos are being put on MyHeavy it doesn't mean that it is being said that Heavy owns them or created them. Yes, maybe some credit should be given and specific Creative Commons rules should be more closely followed, but Heavy is a business. It is not run by idiots, it is a legitimate company with a stocked office in New York City, its not being run out of someones basement.

    During my time at heavy they were preparing for the launch of MyHeavy. In preparation for this everyone in the office made profiles and posted content which we felt interesting etc. There are no fake profiles with purposely embedded content to boost "sales". Also before the launch of Myheavy certain television stations, upcoming movies, and websites bought space on MyHeavy for a profile to be designed specifically for them to fill with videos and get their content out there.

    I refuse to believe, from experience, that Heavy.com needs to pirate anything from anyone. The content overload at Heavy was overwhelming.

    I'm just trying to say that 99% of the people on here have no idea how the company is run. That's all.
  • legendary, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yea but are you using the things you pirate to make a profit?
  • omgcthulhu, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Awesome. Rubbish. I'd better go and drink some vodka http://chocozone.blogspot.com
  • missbhavens, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1umm...who's "we"? You, maybe. Not me.
  • schlomo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Oh please, you even watermark my video and it was retranscoded so I can't find the views/hits in my stats.

    You are so full of crap, but thanks for getting me off your replusive site.
  • Cirne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1HeavyCarson:

    Thanks for the quick response. The point is that some of the results of the search break creative commons licenses. My license prohibits commercial presentation of my videos and requires attribution. Once someone plays my video through your player it has a commercial beforehand, branded with MyHeavy logo and doesn't attribute me. Blip.tv shows the license of videos. So if you pull videos from blip.tv, you need to check the license first to see if the video qualifies for your sevice.

    Thank you.
  • Travelsonic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"it's odd that some have chosen to compare what heavy is doing to an individual user downloading an mp3 (which is, indeed, illegal)."

    Modded down - inaccurate.

    MP3 is a file format in of which itself is not illegal, neither is downloading the mp3 alone as there are free/public domain/creative commons/copyrighted-but-author-gives-permission-to-share files, it's when you don't have the permission to share a copyrighted work that it becomes illegal, regardless of file-format.

    This is a very important dictinction indeed.
  • derosion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1JeremyBanks says: "We aren't making money off of what we steal. That's the difference."

    A penny saved is a penny earned.
  • Cirne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1jay:

    It looks like the heavy video player just takes videos from references. In other words, the http line gives the video player the reference for the video on the web to play:

    video_url=http%3A//blip.tv/file/get/Ryanne-BigMomentshowing537.flv

    or without the escaped code:


    video_url=http://blip.tv/file/get/Ryanne-BigMomentshowing537.flv

    So you could provide any FLV file to the player and it would play. The problem as I see it is the search at MyHeavy.com was providing videos with CC licenses that prohibited playing on their video player.

  • magical1492, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Of course, the artist sees such a small amount of money from this CD. Their record label takes the majority of this money.
  • jaydedman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1here's something screwy.
    you cant find my videos by search "Momentshowing"...But the videos are certainly there:
    http://www.myheavy.com/video.php?video_url=http%3A//blip.tv/file/get/Ryanne-BigMomentshowing537.flv&video_title=Big%20Momentshowing&video_desc=&video_author_name=Blip%20TV&video_author_url=http%3A//blip.tv&video_thumb_url=http%3A//blip.tv/uploadedFiles/Ryanne-BigMomentshowing569.jpg

    If youre going to grab my videos and put ads around without my permission...its just a ***** service.
    There are some best practices to follow if you really care about the creators and the community.

    * Always keep video files in their original format to preserve the creator’s intended viewer experience. Only transcode or “down-res” a video file with the creator’s permission.
    * Always link the “collection” of content (generally a videoblog) back to its creator. If a video comes from Josh Leo’s blog there should be a prominent link to Josh Leo’s blog on every page including content from or mentioning the collection.
    * Always serve aggregated video files from their original hosts so that the original hosting service can track statistics and serve ads if the user chooses to do so.
    * Always link from the video playback page to the page the video was originally published on. This is often called the “permalink”. So If Josh originally posted his video to http://joshleo.com/my-video/ the video view page in the aggregator must link to that URL with an indication that the video itself and more information about the video can be found there.

  • dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I love how on break or ebaums, you can see the watermarked ad in the corner when they rip it off. It's a joke"
    Watermarking something isn't claiming ownership of something, I'd guess it's done to prevent embeding the video on some other random site. There's nothing to stop you watermarking the video also. Youtube effectively does the same - If you embed a video on a webpage, there's "Youtube" branding all over it.
    Now, if they were removing existing watermarks, and replacing it with their own, that would be wrong. But, I guess it's "not cool" to defend sites like break or ebaumsworld?

    Anyway - Is there any.. proof(?) other than some random Yahoo Group's postings?
    - Ben
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