Legalicy of videos used for local SEO

[BobGW]

Hello,

A client of mine wants to use someone else's video (video of how to train your dog) in his pages for "dog training (His City)" The person who makes the how to train your dog videos sells DVDs and that's how he makes his money if that matters.

We want to make sure we're giving the proper credit and doing this OK. What do we need to keep in minds for legalities and respecting the author?

Thanks.

[julie-getonthemap]

There have been several high profile law suits over theft of web content

http://theartnewspaper.com/news/instagram-model-and-makeup-artist-sues-richard-prince-over-copyright-infringement/

[BobGW]

Julie and EGOL,

Some excellent information, and useful for protecting my own stuff as I grow! My client's wife happens to be an attorney and she said exactly what both of you said.

Thanks.

[EGOL]

There is a whole new industry growing of people who look for illegal use of photos, copy, videos etc. so that they can sue.

This is very true.  I have gotten intellectual property consultations from multipe attorneys because people have been using my property in violation of copyright law.  They would be glad to help me build a situation where I can start suing.  Although I have not gone that route, I have been attacking infringers at scale, filing DMCA with Google, web hosts and Adsense.  If you kill their SERP visibility, get them kicked off of hosts and their Adsense accounts turned off, they stop using your stuff.  Once you get a system for submitting DMCA at scale it takes surprisingly little time - we complained against nearly 200 domains in 2016 - but you better know the difference between infringement and fair use.

[julie-getonthemap]

I researched this for a former client (he quit me when he didn't like my answer) and the risk to using another's intellectual property is high.

If you publish, whether it's a book or a website, you must 1) create it yourself, 2) pay for it yourself or 3) have written permission from the author.  Without that you are risking huge penalties if caught. There is a whole new industry growing of people who look for illegal use of photos, copy, videos etc. so that they can sue.

P.S. I'm not sad about losing that client.

[BobGW]

You are completely right EGOL, in many ways. We will be very careful.

[EGOL]

This is a legal question and I am not an attorney.  So, what I write here is amateur kibitzing and personal opinion.

If I was the person who wanted to use the videos of another person, I would contact that person and ask for written permission.  Proper permission will include who you are, why you want to use the videos, what domain you want to post the videos on, a sample of the page where they will be displayed, how long you want to use them and any other information that might influence the owner to say "yes" and especially any information that would influence the owner to say "no".  Failure to do this can get you into serious legal trouble.  If the owner of the videos has done all of the legal homework, your client could be sued for $150,000 for infringement - without the owner of the videos being required to demonstrate that the infringement has caused damage.

If the owner is making money from these videos, even if it isn't serious money, he/she will probably tell anyone who wants to use them how much money must be paid for a license fee or simply tell them "no".

Really, if your client has a website about dog training, he should be making his own videos.  This is best practice because it showcases the client's work, builds credibility with people who want their dogs trained, and the videos can be perfectly customized to the clients business, style, personality and location.

But, if the client is intent on  using the videos of another person, he/she should get advice from an attorney who is qualified in copyright law instead of from people in an SEO forum - I sure would not go to a legal forum for SEO advice    From my experience, the cost of good legal advice is a lot less than most people fear and more valuable than most people imagine.

This is all of the information that I am able to provide on this matter.  Hope your client finds something that works perfectly.