Copyright on You Tube videos for Non Profits

Oct 06, 2015

Hi,

Hoping someone can give me some advice. I work for a charity and i'm designing a course for college staff on supporting students with disabilities. I want to download a few youtube vids and insert them and i'm wondering what the deal is with copyright? My confusion comes from the fact that colleges have to pay for their staff to take the course but we are a non-profit organisation. So am I ok under YouTube's fair use to download and insert or would that be considered 'commercial'? Can't just embed in a web object because I need to close caption all content and many of the videos don't have that. 

Any info would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Dara

2 Replies
Alexandros Anoyatis

Hi Dara,

First and foremost, it's always best to consult someone who knows their legalese...

That aside, I think you're looking at it from the wrong angle.
a) Organization status has no effect on whether fair use applies or not.
b) "Right to use" and "Copyright" are two different terms.
c) As a rule, "if it's up there (on the web), it's copyrighted by someone, one way or another.
d) It's always prudent to ask for written permission - you shouldn't assume the posters of these videos own the copyrights of these videos.
e) Downloading the video violates YouTube's TOS anyway - probably better to embed the video and include captions from source (either automatic, or your own) IMHO.
f) It's always best to consult someone who knows their legalese...
g) It's always best to consult someone who knows their legalese...
h) It's always best to consult someone who knows their legalese...

Hope this helps,
Alex

Dara Ryder

Thanks Alex,

Great advice and much appreciated. I had considered the embed route alright. My main problem with that is that we all know youtube's auto captioning is terrible, most users don't add their own captions and without downloading, I can't add my own transcript. Not to worry, i'll go back to the drawing board.

Thanks again, Dara

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