Talk:I-Hotel

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[edit] SFGTV video on YouTube

Q: What is the problem with linking to a TAX-PAID video that shows you what this article is about? In contrast, the other external link that remains untouched is to a DVD sales page. Using a 'bot to search and destroy YouTube links is a poor replacement for making your own critical judgments about the value of content. I understand the Wikipedia benchmark (of wanting the content to be uploaded to Wikimedia), but you are making "Perfect" the enemy of "Good". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.228.80.217 (talk) 01:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I've examined the YouTube link and since the video it was posted by an authorized person (from SFGTV), is not a copyright violation, and is not a commercial film, as well as being a relevant addition to the article, it meets Wikipedia external link guidelines and I'll restore it and add a note. Hopefully XLinkBot will not revert it; if so, I'll file an override for it. --MCB (talk) 06:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Still, SFGTV says "Programs containing copyrighted materials will be used only if copyright clearance has been obtained. The ownership and copyright for any program produced by the City and County of San Francisco shall be held by the City." .. are we sure it is not copyrighted, even if it was uploaded by someone from SFGTV themselves? I have removed the video for now, pending further discussion. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you might misunderstand the copyright policy involved. WP:EL says that we should avoid external links to copyright violations, not to copyrighted material. ("Material that violates the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked. Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work.") The video is unquestionably copyrighted by the City & County of San Francisco, but an authorized staff member of SFGTV posted it to YouTube for public distribution. (Basically, the SFGTV web site only hosts archives of city meetings and some ceremonies; they don't have the disk space and bandwidth to host everything they've produced for video-on-demand streaming.) While much of the copyrighted content on YouTube is an infringement, there is also a lot of material there that is posted with the copyright holder's knowledge & permission, and this is the case here. Assuming this makes sense, I'll leave it to you to restore the link. Best, MCB (talk) 22:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

That is true, WP:EL indeed says avoid, Wikipedia:COPYRIGHT#Linking_to_copyrighted_works says it stronger. If it is as you say, that you believe that SFGTV posted the movie with permission (is there an easy way to verify?) then it is fine with me. I'll put it back. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Rich here. Tax-created work by SFGTV is treated like NASA photos. They are copyright NASA, but you can use them for non-commercial purposes because your tax dollars paid for them. As shorthand, we usually say to people "they are copyright, but not copy-protected." You can make as many copies as you want, as long as it is non-profit. Not every local PEG channel works this way. It depends on the funding model of the agency. SFGTV, however, is a city department and we are city employees. (Side note- we do have all of this stuff on city web-servers, but the website is impossible to search or randomly find through Google. We can't really use tags effectively with our CMS. Putting highlights on YouTube is the easiest way for Grandma in Iowa to find a video.) Thanks for the efforts and the conversation about this topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.228.80.217 (talk) 05:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)