Case Studies/Blip.tv
By allowing for sharing, re-mixing and re-sharing on the content creator’s own terms we provide more opportunity for shows to grow and build community. — Justin Day, blip.tv CTO
Overview
Blip.tv is an online-video sharing site that focuses on episodic content. Blip.tv provides users a means to upload their content under a CC license while simultaneously facilitating commercial avenues through an ad-sharing revenue model. Close to a quarter of the videos uploaded to blip.tv are CC licensed.
Blip.tv describes itself as a "pro-sumer tool for independent content creators." Its focus on episodic content is meant to reflect a need in the video-blogging community for a platform to build a brand/identity online.
License Usage
Content creators can choose a CC license (tailored to their specifications) or 'All Rights Reserved' when uploading their content. Blip.tv has been called a "true sharing site" by Lawrence Lessig because it allows consumers to download videos (if given the option by the content creator), enabling fluid sharing and reuse.
Motivations
- 'From the very beginning we’ve been big proponents of openness and sharing. We’ve never had licensing where we claim to own other peoples content, nor have we ever tried to obscure direct downloads of the original source material. CC plays a critical role in maintaining an open community from which everyone benefits [...] By allowing for sharing, re-mixing and re-sharing on the content creator’s own terms we provide more opportunity for shows to grow and build community.' - Interview with Justin Day, CTO at blip.tv
Technical Details
Blip.tv has implemented 1) a license chooser in the video upload process, 2) the license mark on pages for CC licensed videos, 3) CC REL metadata, and 4) searching for CC licensed videos.
License chooser
License mark
Metadata
Blip.tv has implemented a subset of the CC REL specification by adding rel="license" tags into links to the CC licenses.
For example, see the source to this page for a CC BY-SA video.
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"> <img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://a.blip.tv/images/cc/by-sa.png" /></a> <span style="display:none">This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0</a></span>
