Hi,<div><br></div><div>I am a bit confused by this all, even to the extent that people are taking it seriously.</div><div>As one person commented; "has the Silly Season arrived early"?</div><div><br></div><div>I posted it onto the YouTube help forum, because I wanted to see what people there thought. I only got one reply so far, so am reposting it here.</div>
<div>But as far as I can see, Ofcom cannot just start charging people like this. It's completely insane.</div><div><br></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Google Help</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:noreply@google.com">noreply@google.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 6:59 PM<br>Subject: Re: [YouTube Help] Ofcom to start charging charities and organisations £2900 for use of Video
on Demand service???<br>To: <a href="mailto:londonhuayu@gmail.com">londonhuayu@gmail.com</a><br><br><br>rewboss has posted an answer to the question "Ofcom to start charging charities and organisations £2900 for use of Video on Demand service???":<br>
<br><div dir="ltr">Hmm. I guess that this would apply to YouTube as the host, not to individual channel owners, so YouTube is the organisation that would have to pay.<br><br>Looking at the various criteria, as explained in section 2.3:<br>
<br>Does it include TV-like programmes? The guidance says that it should primarily be long-form shows of the type that you see on TV, although some short-form videos (like music videos) might also be considered TV-like. The real question is, is it competing for the same audience as TV? Unfortunately, words like "principal purpose" are very vague. YouTube has a lot of music videos and TV shows, but most are illegal and taken down when YouTube is notified of them; YouTube's "principal purpose", you could argue, is as a platform for sharing home videos and networking. Vlogs are not "TV-like content".<br>
<br>Is it VOD? Yes.<br><br>Is there editorial responsibility? A very straightforward answer to this -- it's in section 2.17: "An example of such a service, with no-one exercising editorial responsibility, might be a catalogue of programmes consisting of user-generated content posted to a public website for sharing and exchange, without prior moderation or restriction as to what can be posted." That pretty much sums up YouTube: yes, there are rules, but only in compliance with laws and certain standards of decency. So YouTube seems to escape the Act thanks to this clause.<br>
<br>Is it made available to the public? Yes.<br><br>Further on, there's a list of types of site that may or may not be affected. Among that may not, 3.3.a) mentions content posted by private individuals... etc.<br><br>
So basically, I think that YouTube may have nothing to worry about here.<br></div><br><br><a href="http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?fid=1d763d77107ed0cf00048abbd18fef05&hl=en" target="_blank">View this question at the Google Help Forum</a><br>
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