Classic Shelly Palmer: Bootlegging Bootleggers Bootlegged - A Most Unusual Act of Piracy

Originally Published February 9 2007quotFor the past three months an employee at Gawker Media has posted copyright videos sandwiched between ads for Gawkerowned properties such as Valleywag and GizmodoquotThis quote is from a very interesting article by Greg Sandoval and Stephen Shankland entitled quotGawker Media mystery ads appear on YouTubequot If the allegations are true a person using the screen name quotbelowtheradarquot has been taking popular clips off of YouTube adding Gawker Media ads and reposting the content I love this It is a bootlegger39s paradiseAll you have to do is visit YouTube find a top rated video Snag it Open it with some consumer video editing software like iMovie Final Cut Pro Video Vegas etc Add your advertisements and upload the finished product to YouTube with the same tags and title If it was popular before you added your ad it will be popular again You get all of those gross impressions freeUseless you say Maybe to advertisers who need metrics and accountability But for advertisers who just need gross impressions this is perfect You can bootleg some content from someone who bootlegged it then add your ad and rebootleg it This is a criminal act worthy of Capt Jack Sparrow himselfRead TiVoWorthyTV Everyday at JackMyerscomHow can you stop it Well actually it39s harder than you may think The hosting sites can take down the content but this will only happen if the original content holder knows that their content is being bootlegged What about a piece of content with a legitimate advertisement quotbaked inquot All the Ad Pirate has to do is download your video add the counterfeit ad and repost it Then who would know How bummed would your client be if they saw a piece of superpopular content that they sponsored showing up on video sites with someone else39s pre or postrollIf you think this is not going to be a real problem think again Microsoft Vista shipped with all of the software you need to do this at your desktop Anyone with a Mac can do it now Anyone with a little freeware and Windows XP is also capable of this particular act of piracy In truth all you need is motivation and in a world where fame is the second most important currency quottop 10quot content is pretty motivatingNow this story has an even darker side the further down the demand curve you go the less likely you are to be found out The cost of perpetrating this heinous crime against man God and nature is about as close to free as you can get And although it is not a victimless crime it39s close Screen names are all but anonymous the consumers have no way of knowing if they were supposed to see an ad or not the hosting site has no clue unless someone tells them otherwise I39m surprised that quotbelowtheradarquot didn39t choose quotProfessor Moriartyquot as his screen name he39s like the first online video supervillainList Your Job Openings at Jobs at JackMyerscom emPowered by mediabistrocomSo now the gauntlet is thrown down A few years ago it was popup ads that fired everyone up Then computer viruses got out of control Ultimately Spam outpaced all other forms of online annoyances will anyone care about bootlegged ads on bootlegged content And just to add to the thought experiment about ads will bootlegged content with bootlegged ads be viewed less than bootlegged content without adsThis is so much fun I just want to keep writing the word bootlegged it has lots of Os and Gs Oh gee what will happen when the lawyers get involved Who do you sue YouTube The sponsor Maybe the content was bootlegged by someone who likes Brand X over Brand Y and wants to see their favorite clip about twoheaded Martians with a Brand Y ad in it it39s not Brand Y39s faultIf fame is the currency of the Internet it was only a matter of time before the counterfeiters started counterfeiting it Trading on someone else39s fame is not always illegal but this probably isFor those of us in the TV business this is not a new thought If you live in an outlying area and are serviced by a very small local cable operator or an unscrupulous local broadcast station you may notice from time to time an ad that is less than 30 seconds that was obviously placed over another ad Most of the time it is a legitimate ad insertion over a quotfillerquot ad that is baked into the show in case the local station cannot sell the time However if you see this happen in primetime you can almost bet that the local sales people sold an quotextraquot spot and played it over a national spot People schooledintheart know about this practice and do absolutely everything they can to account for every spot billed However in the real world even in a closed network it39s easy to lose controlIf this practice is hard to police on broadcast and cable just imagine how hard it is going to be to stop it on the Internet Bootlegging Bootleggers Ad Pirates or just plain criminals pick your name it39s all the sameShelly Palmer is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted The Transition from Network to Networked TV 2006 Focal Press Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts ampamp Sciences NY the organization that bestows the coveted Emmyamp174 Awards He is the ViceChairman of the National Academy of Media Arts ampamp Sciences an organization dedicated to education and leadership in the areas of technology media and entertainment Palmer also oversees the Advanced Media Technology Emmyamp174 Awards which honors outstanding achievements in the science and technology of advanced media You can read Shelly39s blog here Shelly can be reached at shellypalmernetCheck out the Shelly Palmer Report archive

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Classic Shelly Palmer: Bootlegging Bootleggers Bootlegged - A Most Unusual Act of Piracy

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