Image via CrunchBase
I am a strong advocate of interoperability between various Cloud players. In my opinion, it is very important for the very success of Cloud Computing, in general, and SaaS, in particular. Cloud vendors are slowly opening up their services through APIs so that other vendors and third party applications can integrate with their services seamlessly. There are some SaaS vendors, like Zoho (disclaimer: Zoho is the sole sponsor of this blog but this is my independent opinion), who also allow access to the entire data on their service using their APIs. Such actions on the part of the vendors has created an ecosystem where users can access their data and apps from many different services easily without any kind of vendor lock-in.
I am pretty happy with the way the concept of technological interoperability is progressing within the SaaS ecosystem. Vendors have realized that being open (data portability and interoperability) is the way forward for their business success. But, they have to coordinate not just on the technological level but on a more fundamental level. They have to make sure that the interoperability philosophy extends to other areas like legal issues. Only then SaaS users can have a complete experience in tune with the nature of the platform beneath it, the web.
In my last week’s post on the Living in the Clouds Series, I talked about a service called Animoto. It is a pretty interesting service that takes our photos, adds music and remixes them in such a way that we end up getting a pretty cool music video. We can either upload our own music, in which case there could be copyright issues if there is any misuse on the part of the users, or use music from the collection Animoto offers, in which case it will be a perfectly legal use. The music offered by Animoto is legitimate and, in fact, they also encourage artists and bands to submit their music so that it is featured on Animoto videos.
In tune with the philosophy of technological interoperability, Animoto offers an option to the users to upload the music video they created from their photographs into Youtube. It is a good option for users because
Last week, I created a paid full length film on Animoto using my family photographs and the music offered by them. It turned out to be a pretty good music video. I, then, uploaded it to YouTube for backup purposes as a private video (not shared with anyone). Next day, I received the following communication from YouTube (username and video title changed to protect privacy)
Dear username,
Your video "your video title" has been identified by YouTube's Content Identification program as containing copyrighted content which rumblefish claims is theirs.
Your video "your video title" is still available because rumblefish does not object to this content appearing on YouTube at this time. As long as rumblefish has a claim on your video, they will receive public statistics about your video, such as number of views. Viewers may also see advertising on your video's page.
Claim Details:
Copyright owner:
rumblefishContent claimed:
Some or all of the audio contentPolicy:
Allow this content to remain on YouTube.
- Place advertisements on this video's watch page.
Applies to these locations:
Everywhererumblefish claimed this content as a part of the YouTube Content Identification program. YouTube allows partners to review YouTube videos for content to which they own the rights. Partners may use our automated video / audio matching system to identify their content, or they may manually review videos.
If you believe that this claim was made in error, or that you are otherwise authorized to use the content at issue, you can dispute this claim with rumblefish and view other options in the Video ID Matches section of your YouTube account. Please note that YouTube does not mediate copyright disputes between content owners. Learn more about video identification disputes.
Sincerely,
The YouTube Content Identification Team
This is a result of either a messed up copyright identification system on YouTube’s side or the agreement Animoto had with the copyright owners limited them to be used inside of Animoto. If it is former, YouTube should fix their copyright identification engine and, if it is the latter, either Animoto shouldn’t have allowed the video to be uploaded into YouTube’s site or they should have worked out with the copyright holder about the issues associated with the idea of interoperability. As an user, I shouldn’t be worrying about such issues and I wouldn’t want my personal video (which I have kept private in the YouTube to protect the privacy of my family members) to be viewed by someone from the side of the copyright holder or any enforcement agency. My actions are pretty legitimate and my privacy should be protected as long as it is legitimate.
This incident brings into focus the complex nature of interoperability in this SaaS era. It is important for different SaaS vendors to sit together and work out such legal issues while opening up their services to be interoperable. Interoperability doesn’t start and end with technological interoperability. It is much more complex and extends to many areas. It is important for SaaS vendors to work through all of them by collaborating much more closely with other vendors. Only then, a truly interoperable SaaS ecosystem can be developed.
Post Comment