9/7/10

Steve Claggett
Department of Cultural Resources
109 East Jones Street
MSC 4601
Raleigh, NC 27699-4601
Dear Steve,
First, my apologies for the length of this letter. I hope to address the complex issue of
video rights and protecting intellectual property in the digital age as it relates to the
Queen Annes Revenge Shipwreck Project and the need to carefully examine how
technology has forever complicated film and video rights agreements.
This letter comes out of a request from John Masters of Intersal Inc. for copies of the
licensing agreements and royalties that Nautilus Productions LLC has paid to Intersal as
the film and video rights holder on the project. He should have those copies by the end of
the week.
First a little background; As you know I have been the volunteer, project videographer on
the QAR Project since 1998 and as such my duties have consisted of documenting the
recovery of artifacts from the wreck site and providing underwater video services to
visiting documentary production companies and news organizations. I maintain the 12
year video record of the project which now consists of over 100 tapes and nearly 100
hours of footage. Each year during the 4-6 weeks of the project I provide my services,
video equipment, supplies, room and board at no cost to the State of North Carolina. This
results in the potential loss of $900-$1500 per day of income from paying clients while
Im on the project. In order to help offset the heavy financial penalty the project creates
for me I officially entered into an agreement with Intersal in 2007 to pay them a royalty
on any stock footage sales I receive. I also contract with visiting production companies
on a freelance basis for the couple of days when they are filming on the project. In my
best years I have recovered only about 20% of my lost revenue or $.20 on the dollar.
Freelance video work and stock footage sales from the project are my only source of
income from the project and so Im very careful to protect those resources.
Regardless of the personal financial drain I think the QAR project is of such importance
to the archaeological community and the people of North Carolina that this arrangement
is worthwhile for me. Additionally, despite being a work for hire to outside production
companies both Nautilus Productions and Intersal require visiting filmmakers to provide
copies of all the underwater footage shot for them for research and study purposes and

this footage becomes part of the permanent archive of video material available for use by
QAR staff.
To date Intersal and Nautilus Productions have supported at least at least four BBC
projects, two National Geographic documentaries, two PBS docs, two German TV docs,
three History Channel docs, one Italian TV doc, one Voice of America project, two
Discovery Channel docs, one South Carolina Educational Television doc, one East
Carolina University documentary and numerous other news stories and feature pieces on
broadcast and cable television.
During the course of the past thirteen years the world of intellectual property and the
storage and delivery of video content has changed in almost unimaginable ways. When
the QAR Project first started video was delivered over the air, on cable or via DVDs.
Maintaining some control over where and how video was used and delivered was fairly
easy as only broadcasters could afford the equipment to record and deliver programming.
Thats all gone.
Now anyone with a cheap high definition camera can broadcast high quality video to the
world via the internet. There are literally dozens of add ons, plug ins and programs that
make downloading, recording and theft of video from the internet both easy and
affordable if not free. We have a conference call today to discuss expanded outreach for
this years QAR Project through blogging, Facebook and the possible posting of video
clips from the project on the web. All initiatives which I whole heartedly support. I do
have some cautions however regarding the use of digital media and as an outreach tool.
Failure to address intellectual property issues regarding digital media can lead to the
following problems;
1. Loss of message and context as the media propagates around the globe.
2. Misuse, abuse or theft.
3. Damage to the project or institution as a result.
4. Web video sites routinely poach video from other sites and while your original video
may have had corresponding information with it that info can be stripped away on other
sites.
Allow me to cite real world examples of these problems. Ill use Google/YouTube as the
example since they are the single greatest facilitators of the theft of intellectual property
on the planet.
One; A colleague of mine worked briefly for a production company that regularly
contracts with Discovery, the History Channel and others to produce documentaries for
television. This company regularly poached video from the web and YouTube without
attribution, permission or compensation. YouTubes Terms of Service specifically
allow this activity.

Two; In working out an agreement to shoot footage at the Jean Lafitte National Historical
Park and Preserve (NPS) for the Mystery Mardi Gras Shipwreck documentary I had to
agree that my footage would never be used in a pornographic film. They had encountered
a problem where stock footage from their park ended up in an x-rated film.
Three; This past Fall a group of high school students in Spokane, WA created a mini
documentary about Blackbeard the pirate. They subsequently won a statewide history
contest sponsored by a local museum and then posted their video on YouTube and
Facebook. In their winning video they used underwater footage from the project without
attribution or permission that had been lifted from the web and manipulated to hide any
watermarks put there to help prevent such abuse.
Four; This Spring the Alabama Department of Natural Resources used a picture of a Sand
Tiger shark on the State website that had been stolen from my website. The image had
been manipulated in Photoshop to remove the watermark and was used without
attribution, permission or payment of a license fee despite a clear copyright notice on my
website.
Five; I routinely find video that Ive posted on the web on sites around the globe. More
often this video was originally grabbed from videos Ive posted on YouTube.
Six; ABC News used the news release footage I provide to news organizations for a
story about the project. This footage has a burned in bug or logo in the upper right corner
as seen in the QARStill.jpg example below. ABC blew up or expanded the video so as
to hide the bug and used the footage in the lower left portion of the screen.
All of the above are real world examples of the common problems faced by all of us in
the digital realm while trying to protect intellectual property. They are further
exacerbated by terms of service employed by; YouTube, Vimeo, Veoh and just about
every website (including networks, cable channels and corporations) that hosts video on
the web. For example YouTubes Terms of Service (item 6C) read;
For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by
submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce,
distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection
with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including
without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and
derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You
also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content
through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content
as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service.
The above licenses granted by you in video Content you submit to the Service terminate
within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your videos from the
Service. You understand and agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display,
distribute, or perform, server copies of your videos that have been removed or deleted.

The above licenses granted by you in user comments you submit are perpetual and
irrevocable.
Most of us who make a living from producing, selling or distributing video or digital
media find these terms onerous at best and these terms often clearly violate written
agreements we have with other parties. Further, YouTube and their competitors make
money from selling advertising on their site while using often illegally uploaded or
copyrighted material and content. In most cases the producers of content on YouTube
receive no compensation.
From an education outreach point of view YouTube, Vimeo, Veoh, etc. are a dead end.
The main point of education outreach is to encourage web viewers to visit the designated
education, project or institutional site to learn and discover more about the topic. Visit a
YouTube web page and you will notice there are no links to external sites, only links to
more YouTube content hence an intellectual dead end. Web surfers discover no more
about the topic but do have the opportunity to see the latest Lady Gaga video pirated from
a cell phone. Educational video or multi-media should be hosted on their respective sites
so that users can actually delve into the topic.
While it is impossible to stop the misuse of footage or intellectual property on the web it
is possible to mitigate potential problems and make informed choices about where and
how the important work of the Queen Annes Revenge Shipwreck Project is broadcast.
So what are some strategies as related to video and multi-media that can be used to
mitigate some of the problems associated with hosting to external sites and the theft of
intellectual property.
1. Host the video on your institutional site. Put only a small teaser video (appropriately
watermarked see QARStill.jpg below) on YouTube with your web site URL clearly
marked. The project and copyright holder are clearly noted and a URL for further
exploration is embedded in the video.

QARStill.jpg
2. Limit the size of the video window. 360X203 pixels in widescreen and 320X240 pixels
in 4:3 viewing mode are good sizes which limit the ability to blow up or up res the
footage but still provide decent viewing.
3. Do not use Best or Highest Quality compression. This still allows for decent quality
viewing but impedes manipulation.
4. Burn in the URL (website) in the lower third of the frame at least 50 lines above the
bottom. This also helps prevent blowing up the video to lose the burned in information.
5. Be sure to embed copyright, creator, URL and keywords information in the final file.
While none of these strategies is 100% effective they do help minimize theft and misuse
of digital media. There use also helps guarantee that web users and viewers have a
reference for further inquiry via the embedded URL. For rights holders and licensors it is
an almost impossible battle to protect and maintain value of digital media once its on the
world wide web. But it is exactly the protection of these rights that makes the 12 year
archive of the QAR project possible.
Again my apologies for the length of this letter but I have only just touched on some of
the issues involved in digital rights management in this age.