Go to bottom of page to see THE CLIP THEFT HALL OF SHAME
"Clip theft" is when you make a video by using excerpts or clips from someone else's fan video, rather than getting your own clips from a DVD or TV/movie recording. It is a huge no-no in fan video circles to do this.
But why does it matter? We're all swiping copyrighted material (DVD, TV show) anyway. Get off your high horse!
The reason why so many vidders get angry about clip theft is that they put the work into ripping the clips from the DVD, selecting just the right scenes, trimming them down, editing them just so, possibly adding special effects, etc. etc. That took a lot of effort. Oftentimes, it took a certain measure of creativity. When you steal the work they did, you're lazy and possibly a plagiarizer. (You stole someone else's editing work and are claiming it as your own.)
Even if you don't understand what the big deal about clip theft is, it is what it is. Clip theft is reviled (hated) in fan video communities, and if you go ahead and steal clips from someone else's fan video anyway, you risk being found out and humiliated. If you put your video up on YouTube, for instance, everyone can see it. Sooner or later, someone will recognize the clips you've stolen.
Here in the Richard Armitage fandom, we've already seen this happen a couple of times—we found clip theft on YouTube, and quickly "outed" the thief on our favorite message board. We can band together and get quite fierce in our outrage! Trust me, it's no fun being the target of a bunch of angry fan vidders.
Read other expressions of outrage over clip theft.
YouTube videos, explaining the evils of clip theft.
Well, if I can't steal your clips, how do I get clips?
Good question! Smart question. There are a lot of tutorials on the web which will help you learn how to make your own clips. This page (on our sister site FoolishPassion.org) describes, step-by-step, ripping video clips from a DVD. The same site also has tutorials for making fan videos on Windows and Macintosh. Really, there's no excuse to steal someone else's clips, when it isn't difficult to learn how to do it yourself.
But ripping my own clips is too hard/too expensive/my brain hurts!
Oh, stop whining. If you are resourceful, obtaining clips from DVDs can be very cheap, or free. The tutorials I've linked to are reasonably newbie-friendly, and have already assisted several newbie vidders in making their first creations. If all of this is too much for you to handle, maybe you aren't cut out for making fan videos.
If you expect instant gratification, where you can make great videos but won't be expected to struggle to learn new things, you need to grow up. Life isn't like that. Get used to it.
Additional Resources, where to get clips:
If you don't have access to the DVDs to shows/movies you wish to use for a fan video, sometimes you can ask permission of a vidder to use their clip. If you are looking for Richard Armitage clips, check out the C19 message board (free membership required) or Foolish Passion Fan Video Forums. Look in the "Video Hub" of C19, or stick around and participate in the Foolish Passion forums, and you'll be able to avail yourself of fan video resources (in the form of short video clips, specifically designed for fan videos).
Clip theft LJ Community:
Kiteflier has started a LJ blog which is devoted to "outing" clip thieves. Be sure to visit it and to alert us to new clip theft! http://clip-theft-spy.livejournal.com/
Sparkleplenty101 has proven to be a most shameless, bizarre, and belligerent clip thief. (See update for latest news. LOL.)
You can see her profile here (currently she's screening comments and disabling ratings on some videos, though some damage has been done already): http://www.youtube.com/user/sparkleplenty101.
This all started when one of our ranks discovered that this rather regrettable video "You Can't Touch This" (which may or may not be put on private) had clips swiped from this Lucas North video by Elvira (also downloadable on the Spooks video page). You'll see amidst the irregular aspect ratio problems (some clips are too skinny and squished, some are too fat and squashed down) that there are some fullscreen "normal" (correct aspect ratio) clips of Lucas North. Many of these clips have an "E" watermark in the corner, but other stolen clips don't show the "E." You can easily detect the stolen Lucas North clips because they're the only ones which look normal (unsquished) at fullscreen (no letterbox in the clip). Sparkleplenty101 would not possess the skill to make these adjustments on her own, as evidenced by the many other Spooks (Lucas North) clips she has in the rest of the video, which look squished or elongated at fullscreen.
Since we noticed the clip theft, we have contacted sparkleplenty101 and alerted her to her theft. Her initial response was childish defiance. She claims we have a lot of "nerve" getting upset by her taking the clips.
Some of her choicest comments include: "Stealing is stealing. You, and everyone else stole those clips from Robin Hood, (Or the BBC if you will.) I will use what I please, just as you have. After all this is said, you come my channel to place a video response? WATERMARK on a group of clips that you stole? Don't be redeclious!" (Love her spelling errors. LOL.) She also haughtily responded: "Here again I get some feedback from another thief. You like others stole them from BBC, without one right on earth. NOW, you're pissed? WOW what nerve. Just call me Robin Hood. I take from someone that stole it before I did. Takes one to know one."
Even though it's been explained to her that it's the editing and effects that she stole (including the correction of aspect ratio—something that's she's obviously incapable of doing on her own) that raises our ire, she still seems to think that she has done nothing wrong.
You can download a PDF of some of her initial responses (along with comments from some in our community) here: PDF of Clip Thief's responses. (172 KB, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.) She of course has since deleted all such comments, but we got a copy before she did that.
UPDATE: It didn't take long to realize that Sparkleplenty101 was a quite unusual clip thief. So, as a companion to a previous Clip Theft video on YouTube, this YouTube video was created, to further explain the objections to clip theft, as well as to "out" SparklePlenty101. This caused all sorts of interesting reactions from her. First she tried to post comments on the YouTube video under a fake username, in an attempt to defend her actions. When that didn't work, she posted amusingly odd and incomprehensible comments under a few fake names on her own video (the one with the stolen clips). We laughed at that, so she quickly removed the comments. Lather, rinse, repeat—each day she keeps doing some new little odd thing to her video.
The offer was originally made to remove any references to her username or identity on YouTube when she did the right thing and deleted her videos with the stolen clips. After all the bizarreness of her behavior lately, this offer is now withdrawn. This entry will remain for a while, to caution others about her particular brand of crazy.
[Name removed] of YouTube has stolen at least one or two clips from Milton Lass's "LifeGuard" video (downloadable on the Richard Armitage fan video page) for her Richard Armitage Music Video (since removed).
We strongly suspect that she has swiped all her Sparkhouse clips from Tittletattle's video (also hosted on this site) as well. These are not quite as an egregious offense because she doesn't appear to have stolen sequences of editing or special effects, but still, she has committed clip theft.
UPDATE: We are not quite sure what happened here. A message was sent to this user, politely explaining our concerns about clip theft. No action was taken for several days. Then, several of us started sending more comments and messages via YouTube to this member, further explaining our concerns. During this time, YouTube was undergoing maintenance. It appeared as if this user was filtering comments to her videos (in order to weed out any negative comments about clip theft) but we may never know for sure if it was the vidder's action, or a YouTube glitch. All we know is that she has now removed the offending video. Since she's done that (without some of the verbal hostility and defiance seen in ILovSean) we're removing her username from this page.
ILovSean on YouTube was pretty shameless.
Her "I'll Wait for You" video (since removed) was a ripped copy of Neelma's "I Would Die For You." All ILovSean did was steal huge chunks of Neelma's video, mix them around a little, change the song, remove Neelma's credits at the end, and claim it as her own video! ILoveSean even had the nerve to respond to some positive feedback for this plagiarized video by saying, "Thax sooo much i think this one is my crowning acheviment :>"
Other passages from Neelma's videos were stolen (we're not sure how much yet). ILovSean's "What Hurts the Most" (also removed) uses the beginning sequence from Neelma's "It Could Be You."
After being "outed" on a few message boards, ILovSean put up a good fight, sending out illiterate and hostile messages to anyone who dared confront her about her theft—as well as deleting any negative comments about her videos. But it didn't take long before she realized that resistance was futile. We all knew what she'd done, and we were not going to go away. ILovSean finally deleted her YouTube membership (but not before leaving several petulant and incoherent messages on some of our YouTube profiles).
We are curious to see if ILovSean resurfaces on YouTube under a different username. Will she re-upload her dreadful videos which use stolen clips and utilize twangy Country Western music in North & South and Robin Hood videos? Be on the lookout for Travis Tritt warbling in the background of a Robin Hood fan video. You have been warned.
Most clip thieves and plagiarizers will try to use the excuse, "A friend gave the clips to me. I didn't know." Don't fall for the "A friend gave it to me" line. It's as old as the hills. Direct the clip thief to this page and tell them that they'll have to come up with a better rationalization for their behavior.