Tube Sites And Members Areas

Marks thread about the broken XTube video on his blog got me wondering, do you think it would be possible to link up hundreds, maybe even thousands of embedded video clips from these adult tube sites in a members area and actually charge for access to them?

I mean, the fact they are being distributed everywhere for free right now obviously means there are no 'licensing' issues so why couldnt something like that work?

Do you think such a site would actually make money for the owner, afterall there would be no content charges, no bandwidth charges and traffic could also be gotten very easily if an affiliate program was offered.

What are your thoughts, do you think surfers would buy in to a membership site full of content from the Tube sites?

Regards,

Lee

Lee,

There are FEW companies that don't have an issue with this, but MOST will have an issue with this. For example, I had contacted AEBN a few weeks ago with this very specific question and the affiliate rep (I'm sorry I don't recall who it is I spoke with) had stated that it would be perfectly fine -- although I would double check that before implementing it.

That being said, I will say that many others that I have asked (and is it sometimes clearly stated in the affiliate agreements) would not be in favor of this AT ALL.

Although I got a greenlight from AEBN in this respect, although not in writing, we are staying clear of using ANY affiliate content in our members area unless we have explicit permission IN WRITING to do this.

Hope this answers your question :-)

Chad(ster)

After I get enough webcast shows done, my plan is to put them into the members area like you suggest. We'll see what happens.

If their business plan is to give away all that bandwidth, theoretically they should be happy to let someone put videos into a lower traffic protected area.

If you get a free baseball card with bubblegum, can the bubblegum company come after you 50 years later if you sell it on ebay?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lee

I mean, the fact they are being distributed everywhere for free right now obviously means there are no 'licensing' issues so why couldnt something like that work?

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Lee, you know this already and this isn't what you meant, I'm sure,
but I thought I'd point it out for less experienced readers.
I heard someone once say that because a bunch of pics were on the
newsgroups they were "public domain" and so they didn't have to
worry about licensing. Of course we all know that just because a
pic or video is on a newsgroup, a peer to peer network, or a tube site
doesn't mean that it's SUPPOSED to be there. It's quite possible for
there to be licensing issues with a video that someone posted on a
tube site. Even if the rightful owner posted it on the tube site, essentially
licensing it for that use, we all know that doesn't mean that you can put
it on a DVD collection and sell it at the local porn shop. So just be careful.
If we follow the tube site's rules about linking and embedding, which probably
means linking to them witrh credit for the video, it'll probably be alright,
but I didn't want to leave the impression that just because it's on a tube
it's necesarily licensed for anyone to do whatever they want with it.

We just had something happen that plays into this issue.

Someone had posted one of our clips on a tube site illegally. A commerical website then embedded the clip into their site and was publicly displaying it and profiting from the traffic. (we think it was actually the secondary website owner that had posted the clip to the the tube site to get free bandwidth, but we couldn't prove it.)

We went after both the tube site and the secondary website that was displaying the clip. Both of them ended up having to pay thousands of dollars for just one clip.

Lesson: Be careful what you post on your site! Free isn't always free! Even if you are not the original source of the clip, if you are publicly displaying it and profiting from it, you become liable as well.