[angusgr]

Wow. Many thoughts arose:

- Is this more, less, or equivalently legal (copyright-wise) to just posting the youtube videos on youtube in the first place? It seems like the act of compositing them in this way would be significant, but maybe not?

- The normalisation of audio could use some work. SwitchCam seems to do something (the youtube volume on each clip was different for me), but it didn't quite work.

- I'd be really interested to know how automated this is, and how much human curation is required to get it right.

- Presumably, the next step is stitching the multiple videos together to make 3d models, allowing you to pan to places between the various camera operators. :)

[brettwelch]

Thanks!

- I'm no lawyer, but the advice we've received is that we're good on the legal side.

- You're on the money re: audio. It's miles better than it was 1 month ago, but we're still not 100% yet.

- There is a human curation step (~5% of the process), but that is mostly for removing really crappy videos. Searching/Synching/Sequencing is automatic.

- I dunno about next step(!), but i agree the idea is super interesting :)

[seats]

I wonder how possible it would be both technically and legally to use the audio from the various angles as inputs into an audio processing step where you distill just the true music audio and clean it up. Ideally you'd have one 'cleaned' version of the audio playing and switching views just switches video.

This may be more legally grey than just piping through audio since you are actually producing a derivative work (even if it is mechanically produced), but the net effect would be awesome. You'd end up with better audio than any one person could record, and the more angles you get the higher quality you can make the audio.

Definitely a great idea and very well done for the first cut. You just need some Wilco on there.

[javanix]

It would probably be technically "possible" but I doubt that you'd end up with anything that sounds listenable.

The only bootleg audio that usually sounds decent are soundboard recordings, and when you find audience tapes spliced in with them the difference is immediately noticable.

[kokey]

I think theoretically you can make it quite good, but it's not going to be a simple task and you probably can't rely on purely the fans' recording. I think the best way would be to modulate them together based on a weighting depending on position or distance away from where the music is coming from, also discarding distorted recordings etc. That said, you probably only want this lightly mixed in along with a good recording from the desk, all adjusted for the viewing angle.

[gridspy]

Perhaps bands who want to be popular on this site could provide concert recordings to splice in.

[jurre]

Maybe this is something that has been mentioned before, but I would love it if I could select a fixed audio from one of the videos. For most videos theres one audio track thats clearly the best and it would be great if I could listen to that one the whole time while switching camera views. PS: Very cool stuff!

[transmit101]

> There is a human curation step (~5% of the process), but that is mostly for removing really crappy videos.

Actually, I'd be tempted to make the process 100% automated, and open it up to the general public as soon as possible.

This has the potential to go extremely viral, and occasional "bad" videos could work in favour of this, by introducing an element of humour into the proceedings.

[nextparadigms]

You may be on the legal side, but I'd argue so were Amazon and Google when it came to letting the users stream their own music from their own "cloud" accounts. That didn't seem to stop the music labels from "demanding" getting paid again for the streaming, too. So you should watch your back and don't give in to them, especially if you know you're on the legal side.

[pbhjpbhj]

This certainly looks like a tortuous infringement in the UK (and I'd posit Europe). I didn't get a "only in the US" notice on YouTube though.

I can't see how this is possibly "fair use" - it's the complete work of music and the visual design of the set, choreography and show that is being reproduced in full in a commercial way. Unless the uploaders bought a license with their ticket to reproduce and distribute online and allow derivative works of those reproductions ...

Would be fascinated to read the letter from your IP lawyer justifying this?

[shinratdr]

It's an embed. Supposed rights holders can easily contact Youtube with a DMCA request and they will take it down.

What is the problem exactly?

[pbhjpbhj]

>Supposed rights holders can easily contact Youtube with a DMCA request and they will take it down. //

This is largely irrelevant to the question of infringement and puts the onus on the owner to spot those infringing. Just because there's a ready way in which you can complain doesn't mean that the unlawful activity is somehow made lawful.

Note I'm making no comment here wrt the soundness or morality of said law.

[angusgr]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Brett. It's a really cool technology, can't wait to see where it goes.

[jdunck]

How do I invest? :)

[brettwelch]

... with as much money as you can ;)

[jdunck]

Sadly untrue given SEC oversight on "qualified investors".

[antimatter15]

Courts ruling on fair use are supposed to take into account "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole". Automated copyright detection schemes in YouTube may try to do some semblance of fair use by allowing snippets of copyrighted content under 30 seconds.

[VladRussian]

just a sidenote - if bittorrent software ensure that no peer-to-peer interaction exceeds 30 sec. for any given title, would MPAA/RIAA/etc... still be able to claim "illegal dowload"?

[Natsu]

When they take into account fair use, they take the entire case into account, rather than following any hard and fast rules saying that using X% is "fair."

In other words, no, there's pretty much no way they'd buy any attempt to game the system so transparently. That's why you need a lawyer.

[aidenn0]

No, the courts take context into account. So for example, it might be perfectly legal to post 2 sentences from a book on your blog, if 10,000 blog posters conspired to post a different 2 sentences to share the whole book, that would be clearly illegal. Furthermore, the law is interpreted by Judges, who are people, not machines, and they tend to take a very harsh stance against people who try to game the system.

[pbhjpbhj]

YouTube are just doing a first pass filter. They're not saying that 30s of a work is legally allowed.

[cleverjake]

Honest question - does the copyright still cover a live work when the original recording was permitted in the first place?

[brettwelch]

Yes it does. Just because the recording was permitted doesn't mean that the recorder has the rights to publish or replay the recording.

Another example: owning a DVD does not mean you can then stream the DVD over Justin.tv.

The thing about rights is that infringement must be claimed by the rightsholder for any action to be taken. Once a rightsholder claims infringement then the content/stream/video must be shut down or removed, and if the site or person continues to infringe, THEN action can be taken.

This is one of the good things about the DMCA and the reason YouTube, Soundcloud and even justin.tv can continue to operate. It is also exactly what the much maligned SOPA bill is trying to change - for the worse.

btw, you should sign a petition against that bill on votizen or similar.

They climbin in yo' windows, snatching your youtubes up.