Help Build The Archive!
 

As some of you may know, I and everyone involved with WatchFirstNow.com work hard to do our best to keep as many events and matches archived as possible. We have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to broadcast (and archive) all of the Canadian regionals for the last 2 years.

The problem lies with events that we do not broadcast. Finding good quality video archives proves to be a never ending task. Last year we managed to accumulate 18 regionals worth of footage. 1853 Matches to be exact. But this is no where near enough.

Week 4 is just around the corner. With 8 regionals this week, Its my goal to get complete archives from 5 events. But we can not do it without help.

So we plea for help from the FIRST community. If you are a webcaster, PLEASE remember to record, and post footage online.

To everyone else, If you know of a good quality match video please post a link below.

Together we can piece together the past.

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

James1902 sent me this link in a PM: www.youtube.com/user/RoboVisionOD


It will be added to the archives asap.

Thanks James!

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

Bochek,

Is WatchFIRSTnow just downloading other people/teams/organizational video and uploading them to their own Vimeo Account and "Archiving" events?

Thanks,
-Clinton-

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

It seems like yes, this is what they are doing...I wonder if all teams whose footage has been taken from them know this and/or are okay with it...

EDIT: I see some of the videos that 1676 recorded are now on the WatchFIRSTnow site, but I know that we were never asked about them.

Taking others' work without giving credit or asking permission and declaring it as your own is neither gracious, professional, or legal.

I find it funny how WatchFIRSTNow is sending out a 'plea' to the FIRST community and asking them to 'PLEASE' record and post footage online, while they seem to then take the videos and claim them as their own on their account...

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

My apologies for the double-post, but I want to ask the question: Why not just submit videos to The Blue Alliance, which also hosts individual match data? If we truly want the FRC Community to come together to help with recording and archiving, why not focus on The Blue Alliance, which already streams most of the webcast live feeds, has an incredible amount of footage already, allows users to submit their own video, and also lets users offer suggestions for the site and try coding them out themselves, instead of splitting the footage up between different sites?

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

crossroads 2014 all matches except 1 and 2 on the mavericks youtube page

http://www.youtube.com/user/MavericksTeam2252

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

Indeed. And lack of features isn't a valid excuse - it's open source, so submit a pull request if there's a feature you want (or ask, somebody will know how to write it). Webcasting resources are spread thin enough as it is, and fragmenting them more won't help.

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

Woah, Time to put out some fires.

That is the source of some of the content yes. We are constantly looking for sources for videos. We are creating an archive so that there is one location to find all records.

We are not claiming any content as our own. In fact, we operate at a financial LOSS and have no source of income coming from the archive. We spent countless hours sorting and organizing content. We fund the project from our own pockets. To call what we are doing unprofessional is insulting.

There are many problems with submitting videos to TBA. Most YouTube videos have their audio removed after a few months due to copyright claims. And all of the videos linked on TBA are subject to users deleting their YouTube accounts or removing videos.

- Bochek

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

Thank you for the link, It has been added to our todo list.

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

There are other ways to create a one-location archive of match footage instead of uploading them to your own account, as shown by The Blue Alliance.

It is also insulting to other teams to have their footage stolen from them, without having been asked permission or have been given any credit. I have seen that this has happened to 1676 on WatchFIRSTNow, and I had no knowledge of it until I went to their site and discovered their videos are our videos. That is footage that 1676 has spent countless time on sorting and organizing, and all that I see WatchFIRSTNow has done to it is downloaded it from YouTube using a third-party and then uploaded it to their Vimeo. Downloading and then uploading others' videos to your own account without permission or mentioning their source can be seem by some as claiming the content as your own. Theft is theft in my mind, which I don't view as professional. Just as you are offended when your work is downgraded, members on 1676 work hard and take pride in recording footage of each match, and won't appreciate it when credit is taken from them.

In our 1,300+ videos on our YouTube Channel, most of which is match footage, we have not had a single video have it audio removed. But, the audio would still violate Fair Use on Vimeo, and could still be removed due to it being illegal. And, they are subject to being deleted/removed by users since they are their property, and thus the users retain the right to take down their work if they have their own reasons, which they should.

I'm not trying to put down your efforts, I am actually glad that people notice the problem of poor archiving and are leading the charge to step up the community's efforts. I just don't understand where the fairness is in taking other team's footage without permission or recognition and posting it on your own account without their knowledge.

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

One of the interesting implications of the user interface design of a video hosting site is the varying emphasis on implied ownership of content, depending on how you access the videos. In some pages, many sites definitely give the appearance of ownership, while in others, it's fairly clear that the content is hosted there because the uploader is asserting fair use.

Given the need to manage the content centrally (to make an archive consistent in function and appearance), uploading with a single account used only for that purpose is a good compromise. Definitely include an explicit credit to the original source, preferably including a link outside the video (so that if the embedding breaks, the content can still be found, and so that the source is clearly acknowledged).

Strictly speaking, it's not quite theft (which is always a criminal act, by definition). Copyright infringement can be criminal (relatively rarely), but is more frequently a civil tort. And even then, copying without permission frequently isn't copyright infringement, particularly if fair use or fair dealing are applicable.

As to the Vimeo FAQ item: that's an oversimplification, likely for the purpose of saving (a lot of) work for Vimeo. They're not explaining the limit of what's legal, or even the limit of their policy; they're explaining what they'd prefer that you do.

Regarding intellectual property rights, in the United States, there's a fairly straightforward (though not perfect) procedure for giving notice of alleged infringement, taking the content down, protesting the takedown and reinstating the content, and then opening legal proceedings (if desired). Basically, fair use is a defence to copyright infringement, and if you assert it using that procedure, the owner has to sue you and convince a court that it is not fair use.

That approach, writ large, underlies the Internet Archive's efforts to archive the entire public Internet at relatively frequent intervals. Their argument is that the value of having (what amounts to) a set of cultural artifacts frozen in time and archived by a neutral party outweighs the personal intellectual property rights of their creators, so long as the content is used for limited purposes that are justifiable under United States fair use law.

You might make similar arguments for this archive, though they might be somewhat weaker given the limited scope of WatchFIRSTNow.

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

St. Louis: (Thanks to 1094)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...a3kGEuzrpMogTS

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

Have you tried contacting the TBA team to try and resolve these issues? My experience with them has been extremely positive and friendly.

I'm glad that you're interested in solving these problems, but I don't think splitting efforts is productive here, nor a good use of time and money.

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

Bochek,

You have Ads on your site below every video.(see attached picture)

My opinion is to ask and give credit where credit is due. As stated before maybe link to the original source. That way if the WatchFirstNow account (http://vimeo.com/user15100903) ever got deleted users would still be able to find the content.

I also find it interesting that none of the videos uploaded to your Vimeo account is public and the only way to view them is via the www.WatchFIRSTnow.com website that includes personal/private Ads.

-Clinton-

Re: Help Build The Archive!
 

I don't know about you guys, but I use TBA for almost everything. They've been around forever, have a lot of match archives, have the scores in a convenient manner on the page. I also haven't heard a concrete reason to not use TBA. Please enlighten me if I'm wrong on that...