Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Monday, February 22, 2010

Show Ideas...

So I can honestly say that the past two weeks I gave no thought to my Whitney Sews episodes until the day of filming (Tuesdays) and this week is no different...that's what happens when I'm busy planning a wedding and am out of town every other weekend.

I'm going to try and think up with some upcoming episode ideas and maybe even film a few up ahead of time so episodes won't be quite as lame as they have been lately. If you have any ideas/suggestions/etc. let me know (but no guarantees).

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Thursday, February 11, 2010

HowCast Update

So here is the email I sent to Howcast yesterday-

"I just came across your site and found that my youTube videos are being used without my consent. The user aglanceatmyworld has posted many of my Whitney Sews videos. The username is the same as my youTube account (link below) but the howcast username was NOT created by me. I have read your rules and conduct policies and would appreciate if you would pull the videos and close the user account. Thanks in advance for your prompt action.
Whitney

www.youtube.com/user/aglanceatmyworld "


And I receved this response-

"Hi Whitney, We apologize for the confusion, but your videos are being embedded via YouTube. We're using YouTube's chrome-less player to display your videos and if you look closely at each video you will see the YouTube watermark on the lower right hand portion. Additionally, all of the playback statistics will be visible through your YouTube profile. If you still would like to have your videos removed from Howcast you can disable your embed code from your YouTube account. Please let us know if you have any additional questions. Best, The Howcast Team"


To which I said-
"Thank you for your quick response. However I still have a problem with how my videos are being used. Someone is posing as me by using my youTube user name to post my videos on your website. My identity is being falsified and this is a form of identity theft. The reason I can not simply disable the embedding on youTube is because I embed my videos on my personal networking sites, making them available for my family and friends. If I disable the embedding then I would lose the viewers who mean the most to me. I appreciate your help on this matter and I know that you will do the right thing by closing the account.
Whitney"


The latest email said-
"Hi Whitney, We have a system that embeds relevant how-to videos on to Howcast. With this process Howcast automatically creates profiles to give appropriate credit to the content owner. There are no other parties involved. If you would still like to have this profile removed from Howcast, we can do that, however you will no longer receive the credit. You can also create an account and I can move the videos over to it and remove the placeholder profile. Please let me know what you prefer. Thank you for your time. Best, The Howcast Team "


I haven't decided what action I'm going to take at this point. If I force them to close the account they will still use my videos but without even my username. But if I create my own account then it will be one more networking site I'll have to keep up with. I do appreciate the fast responses from howcast. The only complaint I have left is that howcast has ads posted on their site. By using my videos they are creating ad revenue for themselves by feeding off my hard work. Anyway, I'm going to talk to a couple of my friends who went through Media Ethics and Law with me and get their opinions about if I should leave the videos as is, create an account, or what.

*Thank you to those who responded to my last post*

A Bit Discouraged

Today (Wednesday) I gained 37 new subscribers in 24 hours...that is very exciting news, but I wondered what caused the spike in numbers. So I googled 'Whitney Sews' to see if I could find one of my videos featured somewhere. I came across some very interesting things.

One website I found was howcast.com. There was an account with the user name aglanceatmyworld (the same as my youTube account) and the user had posted 34 of my 41 episodes within the past 4 months. I do NOT have a howcast account. That is not me. I do not appreciate someone pretending to be me and stealing my videos off youTube to post on another site. And I don't know...it could simply be someone trying to help me gain viewers, but either way it is illegal. If someone wants to embed my videos into their blog, DIY website, facebook, etc. I'm fine with that because they are still linked to my youTube. But when someone is taking my videos and re-uploading them on another website as me it is not ok. (Can you tell I'm a little upset about this?) I have contacted howcast asking them to remove the videos and close the account. I have not received a response yet but I will keep you updated. They seem like a nice website so I'm assuming things will go smoothly.

I also came across the website VidoEmo where my videos have been illegally uploaded instead of embedded. I contacted them as well but I don't have as high hopes on a good response with them just from the look of the site...but I hope I'm wrong about that.


So anyway, I had a bit of a frustrating evening...but I guess this is just one of the things that comes with putting yourself out there on the internet.

I also want to mention that I do in fact read every single comment left on my youTube accounts, facebook, and blogs and try to respond to as many of them as I can. As for other places my videos get posted to (whether legally through embedding or illegally) I am unable to read/respond to those comments. So if you have a comment, show idea, etc. please leave it on one of my youTube accounts or blogs so that I will be able to read it and hopefully respond to you. I enjoy reading every comment and if it wasn't for all the Whitney Sews viewers and the lovely comments you all leave I would have quit this project a long time ago. So thank you for the support, it carries me through evening's like tonight.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010