Talk:Clip Theft
(This paragraph has been dealt with, okay to ignore). I don't think I'm the right person to actually write this up, but I wonder if it's worth extending this discussion (or writing a related one) to concepts around gif theft and reblogging, particularly places like Tumblr where original sources are easily lost. The reason I say I'm the wrong person is that I'm not deeply familiar with that branch of fandom, I just know it's an issue. If you'll allow a personal anecdote about an inadvertent breach of my own, a couple of years back I wrote a little fannish thing that became pretty big, nearly 100,000+ reblogs (http://deslea.tumblr.com/post/106981587447/once-upon-a-time-there-were-three-brothers-their). It included three gifs (video-based) of the three characters that I found on a gif search site. The "original" bit, such as it was, was the text. I certainly didn't think anyone would think the gifs were either "mine" or anyone else's in any way, they seemed to me to be straight video-to-gif conversions. Well, there wound up being a side discussion by someone who seemed to have claimed one of the gifs as hers and basically expressing dismay among her friends at how often it was stolen. I didn't get into it with her (I found it quite a while later), but she had friends sympathising, no one was saying she shouldn't be upset or anything. So my reading from that is that this clip theft issue not only is still around in some circles, it has moved to gif and reblogging.
Another thing that might be worth exploring in this article is what types of clip theft there were and why it was considered an issue. From my perspective there were two types - straight theft of source (ie, seemingly just isolated fragments more or less in their "original" form), and theft of what you might call "original" material (fragments that were cut/re-spliced/re-timecoded/otherwise modified and are no longer just like the originally-aired source, lifted out as a unit). Now, the lines between the two types of theft are blurred, because seemingly-source-theft could actually unwittingly also steal subtle but important creative alterations (cuts, micro-changes to speed in sections to change mood, etc) that the clip thief might not even realise were there. But I do think there was a general sense that these two types of theft were different, the latter being much more serious.
That said, from memory, there were cases where straight-source theft was itself considered a breach. Some simply took exception to their investment in equipment being, I don't know, disrespected? Taken for granted? By other people getting an advantage from it without even asking. Once case where I personally took exception (not for a vid, for re-posting on YouTube) was footage from some X Files daillies. I spent a *lot* of money on those daillies and I did not appreciate someone else more or less taking credit for something exclusive bought with my money. So I would be wary of asserting too strongly that straight-source theft mattered less. That was often true IMO, but not always, and there would have been some vidding pockets more permissive than me, and some less.
Anyway, I hope you'll forgive me dropping this here rather than editing the article direct. I just don't think I'm widely enough tapped in to a good cross-section of vidding history, even though I have a long history. I'd be more comfortable leaving this in the hands of others to decide whether to use these thoughts, or park them for now.
Sharing Gifs/Reblogging
We have a section on sharing gifs/reblogging under https://fanlore.org/wiki/Sharing_Fanart (it includes Tumblr). I'll add a link to this page.MeeDee (talk) 20:57, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
-- Awesome, thanks! Deslea