Forum:Exception to video policy: advertisements

Our video policy firmly disallows any video material from YouTube other than from the official channel of a licensee or copyright holder. This is right and proper, so as to ensure we don't fall foul of the BBC.

However, I'd like to argue for a slight exception to this rule. Because of the age of our beloved franchise, there are a number of licensees who are now defunct, meaning they have no official channel. Equally, there are some modern licensees, like Character Options, who routinely scrub their official channel of "old" adverts to keep people focused on the most recent stuff.

It would be very helpful for some older products' pages — like Dr Who's Space Adventure Book, Doctor Who wholewheat pasta shapes in tomato sauce or Character Options series 1 action figures — to be able to show the official ad, which is still available on YouTube, but not on an official channel.

Since it's extremely unlikely that any advertiser would be unhappy with us showing their ad, I'd like to offer an exception to the video policy. That exception would read something like:


 * Permission is granted to use of video from non-official channels in one instance. Non-region-locked videos of previously televised advertisements, in their entirety, of licensed tie-in merchandise, where and only where such video does not exist on the official YouTube channel of the advertiser, may be uploaded to this wiki.

Does anyone object to this addendum to the video policy? 14:31: Tue 07 Feb 2012


 * There was a Doctor Who tinned pasta product?!
 * This seems like a good idea, so we can include the SkyRay adverts, Tom Baker's New Zealand Telecom ads and those classic Prime computer adverts. --Tangerineduel / talk 15:32, February 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm against it. There is a lot of grey market stuff on Youtube and while it is unlikely that that anyone would object, the possibility exists. Boblipton talk to me 19:01, February 7, 2012 (UTC)
 * Grey market? What do you mean, Bob?   19:38: Tue 07 Feb 2012
 * By that, I don't mean, "what is a grey market", but rather how could it possibly apply to Doctor Who merchandise? I understand how it could apply to DW video content (though not that much nowadays, thanks to largely day and date broadcasting).  But what could possibly be grey market about things that aren't even available for sale anymore? Or, in the case of stuff still for sale, but hardly current, surely we're talking about things that are way past any regional embargoes. Have you got a specific, credible concern that isn't covered by the proposed addendum, above?   19:49: Tue 07 Feb 2012

Grey market in the sense of copyrighted video content. Youtube is lousy with material that belongs to someone and is posted without regard to its status -- not infrequently you will see stuff with the trademark bug not removed. It's a big source of discussion on Nitrateville.com, the classic movie board I haunt. While I don't recall anyone going after people who post old commercials there, the possibility is a live one and the current wiki policy of only linking to official channels of rights holders is a wise one. Embedding stuff should be right out and linking would likely result in someone having to check the links regularly to make sure they are still active. Boblipton talk to me 20:12, February 7, 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, interesting views, but don't forget a couple of wrinkles.


 * First, some of the manufacturers don't actually have a copyright to defend anymore, since their licenses with the BBC will have lapsed. This is true with Prime Computer (if Prime even exists anymore, anyway), New Zealand Super-Annuated Trust Services, and the SkyRay adverts, amongst others.  Most likely, that means the copyright reverts to BBC Worldwide.  And if they're not already pissed with our use of images from the shows proper, they're really not gonna be fussed that we've put up an ad for an old piece of merchandise.


 * Second, where the licenses are current, the official channels themselves sometimes dump old adverts. This is certainly true of Character Options.  They don't have a single ad up that doesn't feature the Eleventh Doctor.  So, I have every expectation that the Character Options videos we now have up will one day be taken down by Character Options.  And not for any worrying reason; they just want to keep eyes focussed on their latest stuff.  The truth is, whether a video is on an official channel or not, we still have to periodically check that it's still up, because we don't actually upload videos to Wikia servers.  We just embed a link.  And there's no way of changing that.  (I use the term "upload" in the addendum because that's what appears to be happening, and there's no real reason to go into obscure technical details on policy pages.)  01:08: Wed 08 Feb 2012