Jan 8, 2007 - New Guidelines And Content Duplicates, Very important - please read! Options

[Talia]

Hi everyone,

I’d like to let you know about a 3 small changes that we have made in the program including some more clarification about content duplicates.

Producer Rewards will not accept any videos with low technical quality. If you create a video that is low-quality or that, when shrunk to a small screen, is not viewable, then it will not be accepted into Producer Rewards. Producer Rewards is our premium content and people must be able to see it in any format whether it's a giant plasma screen or a PDA or mobile phone screen. We have found that videos that rely heavily on the viewer being able to read text are not good at making this transition and we need to adjust our expectations accordingly. As long as the video works on a normal computer screen, we will not remove it from the site itself, but we will be stricter about admitting such content into the program.

Second, we will not longer accept videos whose sole purpose is to promote other websites. What does this mean exactly? Well, a video that just shows someone typing in a url of a cool site that has nothing else to offer but showing us the site (i.e. something you could just send as a link to a friend), will not longer be accepted into the program either. Again, we will not remove it from Metacafe as long as its quality is not low.

Finally, a bit about content duplicates. Any video that shows the same idea as one that has already been accepted for Producer Rewards will not be accepted to the program. This doesn’t just mean performing the same card trick or showing the same hidden file on your PC. This also includes other videos that have a similar idea. For example, if we’ve accepted a video showing how to use a certain filter in Photoshop, then we will not accept any other videos showing how to use filters, even if they are different than the filters shown in the first video. (And we already have these, by the way.)

I’d like to say again that any videos accepted for Producer Rewards will not be rejected and payment will not be taken back except in extreme cases (such as fraud), so if your video has already been accepted, don’t worry.

Though these guidelines may seem a bit harsh, they are in your best interest and in the best interest of Metacafe’s audience. You do not need to worry about other producers copying your ideas, and Metacafe’s audience will not be seeing the same thing again and again, thus enhancing everyone's experience, viewers and producers alike.

Keep on making cool videos, and as usual, I will be here to answer any questions you may have.

Good luck!

[kipkay]

That all makes perfect sense. I always thought that just showing a website was a violation of the fair use concept. Fair Use being:

"In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and "transformative" purpose such as to comment upon, criticize or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner."
That's why I did that stupid parody on Google Fight. I thought I could not just show the website but had to actually do something more.

Also, does that mean that no video using Photoshop will be accepted any longer? No more massage videos? Has the fine line been widened? Sounds like it....which is a good thing.

[Talia]

We're purposefully not giving specific examples (massage, photoshop, XP, etc.) because we reserve the right to accept or reject any video. An incredible new thing can be done in any of these categories and we'd like to leave the door open for these cases.

[Zack Scott]

Well, for the most part I like the changes. Miri told me they would also no longer be accepting riddle videos. But sometimes I think the "market" takes care of itself. For example, I have a really hard time getting a computer-related video to do well. The same goes with riddles now. But I would hate to see this rule applied too often:

"For example, if we’ve accepted a video showing how to use a certain filter in Photoshop, then we will not accept any other videos showing how to use filters, even if they are different than the filters shown in the first video."

This could easily deter people from making successful serialized videos such as massagenerd. I would hate to see MetaCafe say:

"For example, if we’ve accepted a video showing how to use a certain massage, then we will not accept any other videos showing how to use massages, even if they are different than the massages shown in the first video."

[Talia]

Hi Zack,

The example you gave with the massages doesn't apply here. If you know Photoshop, you know that there is a place for filters. Once you know how to find the filters, you can play around with the rest. By contrast, knowing one massage technique doesn't mean you can necessarily figure out the others on your own.

Either way, the content duplicate thing is just about the same as it was before, with just a bit more of an explanation for those who didn't understand/didn't read the posts before.

[Zack Scott]

Okay good. One thing I really want to see on MetaCafe is regular contributers/producers who do series of videos. I think massagenerd is a good example. Another would be askaninja, but I don't think he's here.

[Talia]

Nope - he's not here.

[betacafe]

I have a question. What if we show where to get the firefox extension by typing in url. Is that acceptable?

Thanks

[Talia]

I can't say if something will or will not be accepted, but other than the fact that I think we already have one of those, you may want to reread #2 in this post.

[massagenerd]

Thanks Zack for the compliment! It would be nice to see series of videos. I wish there was some kind of category to find all the certain kinds of videos, instead of entering keywords (People still abuse the keywords).

MetaCafe could branch off into experts explaining their specialties and everyone would win!

You can never get enough education!!!

[YangX]

okay then what size video do you want us to send to PR and if I had a video that passed the thresholds but doesn't have a good size then can I submit a revised version?

[Talia]

It's not a size thing. Make the screen small, like a cell phone, and if you can't see everything clearly, then it won't be accepted. Almost anything that is a website or a computer tip will not pass this requirement, for example, so even before you make the video, think about what you creating to see if it would be accepted to begin with.

[Qasol]

Hey,

Thank you Talia for explanation and greeting .

[Talia]

Hi Qasol,

Neither video has been "Accepted" to Producer Rewards. The content duplicate policy applies when one video has already been accepted into the program. Since neither has been accepted into the program, either are fair game.

By the way, welcome to the forums! :-)

[iLikeThat!]

So essentially what your saying Talia is that videos that Metacafe can profit off from are more likely to be accepted into Producer Rewards. That makes total sense. But could we get more information on the kinds of videos that Metacafe prefers?

So for future submissions people should check to see if a similar idea/video was accepted into Producer Rewards (to prevent Duplicate Content), film everything with the view of all screen sizes from a small mobile screen to a plasma screen, and make sure all rights of the video belong to you. Anything else?

Considering the looks good in all screen sizes thing, it would be ideal not to have a lot of text in your video than?

[Talia]

Hi iLikeThat!

Welcome to the forums!

There isn't a specific type of video that we are looking for, although, yes, you are right in everything you said above. Scripted videos that aren't how-tos (like you see in our featured video spot) are the types of videos that, incidentally, take care of all the problems that are listed above: None of them have big amounts of texts that can't be seen on a small screen, the chances of them being a content duplicate are slim to none, and they are interesting.

Owning all the rights to your video is our #1 rule. You can get 3 million views in an hour, but if you don't own the rights to the entire video, we can't legally pay you, and anyway you would get into trouble if you were caught. We just prefer to save you and us the trouble.

Anyway, if you have ant more questions, I am here, as always (except the last 36 hours that I ran away to a place with no Internet access to make sure I was offline!)

[Hypno-Systems UK]

Thanks Talia!

I have a content question.
I use licensed stock footage
or PD footage as backing for
my hypnosis videos. I can
supply all documentation,
receipts, etc. How would
I approach PR support
to submit these as my
videos approach threshold?
Would an email with the
relevant information be
sufficient?

Thanks,
Jocelyn

Hi iLikeThat!

Welcome to the forums!

There isn't a specific type of video that we are looking for, although, yes, you are right in everything you said above. Scripted videos that aren't how-tos (like you see in our featured video spot) are the types of videos that, incidentally, take care of all the problems that are listed above: None of them have big amounts of texts that can't be seen on a small screen, the chances of them being a content duplicate are slim to none, and they are interesting.

Owning all the rights to your video is our #1 rule. You can get 3 million views in an hour, but if you don't own the rights to the entire video, we can't legally pay you, and anyway you would get into trouble if you were caught. We just prefer to save you and us the trouble.

Anyway, if you have ant more questions, I am here, as always (except the last 36 hours that I ran away to a place with no Internet access to make sure I was offline!)

[Talia]

Hi Jocelyn,

Yes, that would be good. It's better to do it BEFORE your videos pass 20,000 views so as to save the "heartache" of being rejected for those reasons when we review the video.

[Hypno-Systems UK]

My thought exactly, Talia.

I had intended to do it as soon as each one hit 10,000 so
that the info would be already on file when threshold is
reached.

Have a great weekend!

My Channel

Hi Jocelyn,

Yes, that would be good. It's better to do it BEFORE your videos pass 20,000 views so as to save the "heartache" of being rejected for those reasons when we review the video.