This video is my property and all rights are reserved.
This post is the story of an extraordinary phenomenon concerning my amateur movie about Giethoorn in the Netherlands.
I made this little video about six years ago and posted it on YouTube for friends to see. I never bothered about restrictions on who could view it, so I just left it as 'public'. My video isn't at all professional. It's all home made and home edited - even the music is just something I put together from Garageband, so I never gave it much thought. For the first few years, it seemed to be fairly popular and I received some comments about it - some good, and some scathing about the whole cutsie atmosphere. It really is a gorgeous place but risks being hopelessly twee, so I was fine with whatever people said about it.
But then I stopped watching what happened. I'm not much of a YouTube follower in any event, so when notifications of comments came through, I just deleted them.
What I didn't know was there there was some kind of explosion in the views, and I still don't really know why. Instead of the few thousand I'd seen before and which some of my other videos have had, this one shot up to 140,000 views, and it's still going on. In the last month alone there have been over a thousand.
Now YouTube has a clever kind of analytics page. It's so clever I can't fathom it at all, but it looks as if some other sites have used my video. One of them seems to be The Daily Mail, a UK newspaper, another is a travel website. Maybe this is the reason. I don't honestly know why they should use it - there must be others that are much better made, but perhaps it's because it's free to borrow. Still, it's made me think about removing it or restricting it.
Here's another point. If I had a cent for every view, I'd have made a nice bit of money now - more than on any of my books! That's a sobering thought, isn't it? Maybe I've missed my vocation! Maybe I should put away my pen and pick up my photo camera. It takes a fraction of the time to make a film and you have the incentive to go to nice places too. Now there's a thought. Maybe I could go and do it by boat…..
Hi Val .. that is a sobering thought - and there must be ways of adding a few cents your way ..
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched the video - but it'd be good to know why the spikes etc ..
Enjoy the better weather .. not sure how long it'll last - but we've had half a sunny day!! Cheers Hilary
Why don't you re-edit it to add a plug for your book on it Val? At least that way you would get the advertising benefit from it!
ReplyDeleteHilary, thanks! I think Chris has come up with a great suggestion already. Yes, the weather has improved, but it's still quite chilly here.
ReplyDeleteChris, you're a genius. The only downside is I will lose the current link that the sites that use it already have, but it's definitely worth a try! Good thinking :-)
This is lovely, Val - and I think they may have infringed copyright laws, or stolen intellectual property, by simply helping themselves. This is all v wooly online, but there are ethical issues with just helping oneself to anything (photos, film, writing) to something.
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose complaining will get you anywhere- but maybe an email saying how delighted you are they are using your film and how about giving you the credit?
Thank you, Jo! You have made a good point and I'll investigate it. For the moment I have added a plea to the description for people to use it to respect my intellectual property and copyright and to either ask me or give me a credit when they use it. I might also take Chris' suggestion and re-edit it!
ReplyDeleteHi Val, I think you should re-edit, and then link it to the original so you get the full spectrum of links and benefits. :)
ReplyDeleteHow lovely that you've become a youtube sensation. ;)
xx
AM
Haha, Anne Marie, I'm not really sure that it's quite a sensation yet, but it's been a huge surprise to me! Your suggestion is also brilliant. I might just do all of the the ideas suggested here!
ReplyDeleteActually, I've been wasting time I don't have today making another video from some clips I've had for years. That one will have all the links to all my sites for sure :-) Lovely to see you here, dear! I loved your blog post!
Hi Val, oh I love your video. I could live there! It's beautiful.
ReplyDeleteYes, you could do books and video......food for thought.
This place in your video is like a dream. :)
xo
Thank you, dear Grace. That is a lovely thing to say :-)
ReplyDeleteVal it is merely an extension of what you are doing on this blog.
ReplyDeleteWeigh up the pro's and cons first then make a decision :)
Thank you, Mel. I will, indeed. At the moment, it's just interesting to watch how many views it gets. There's a sort of fascination in the numbers :-)
ReplyDelete