The Figure Skating War on Youtube

I'm also really upset about the removal of free skate videos on youtube.
If they were worried about copyright, they should at least upload the videos in their own channel or create a channel for skating videos so that fans and non-fans can stream competition vids.
This is an era of digital content. People are switching from television to internet to consume content.
I think that they're losing a lot, money and viewers, by not having fs videos on the internet at a time when figure skating is "dying" as a sport.

To this day, I still cannot find any video of Evgenia's Pyeongchang free skate or Alina's short program. Yuna's Gershwin with 8M+ views was also deleted. I mean come on. They're not helping themselves by worrying about a few pennies lost on copyright. They're sacrificing a bigger opportunity by being stingy on content.

ETA:
If people know how amazing fs is through online videos, they will come to shows, to competitions to watch live.
It will eventually help fill those empty seats at competitions.
That's how I was converted and eventually driven to watch the Olympics live on another country.

Like elhenry, I’m a poster child for the power of youtube skating videos. Six years ago - with zero interest in the sport for many years - I was hit as if by lightning by a random Yuzu video, and so it began. (Riverdance was a real booster rocket- that joy & energy! “Jason Brown, ladies & gentlemen, Jason Brown!”) Multiple programs, then multiple skaters, whole flights - wonderful in their own right and pure gold as history and context - all through YouTube. Interest grows and deepens with knowledge! Dedicated fans’ videos and comments are a source of community and a reflection of the tremendous shared interest & love one feels so strongly in the arena. And only because of these came IN & USFS membership & NBCGold and what live competitions I can afford. Friends are starting to travel the same path but almost certainly no longer. How can they? Competitions on commercial TV are a chopped-up chaotic mess, barely viewable through the hectic blare of commercial breaks, braying commentary, and multiple layers of access. I love this beautiful sport, it is a wonder & great joy to my heart, and what the ISU is doing presumably at the networks’ behest is terrible for all the reasons you all have said. It’s heartbreaking, and bewildering, and criminally stupid.

Lambari said:

But the mass deletion as it is now started since Worlds 2018, previously it was only that bad for videos from the Olympics. Now they are cutting down the GP series as if it were the Olympics. It wasn't nearly as bad as it is now before. What changed?

Click to expand...

Lambari said:

Yes, they're not only deleting the videos from a recent competition, they're doing it left and right. They went on a deleting spree of older videos. It truly makes no sense in my understanding since the broadcasting channels ain't losing any money from competitions from 4, 5 years ago.

Click to expand...

To try to explain what I think has happened (and it's not as if they've gone on a mass deletion spree of old videos deliberately, they've just been caught in the cross-fire).

Until recently blocking of videos only occurred because of Youtube’s automatic Content Id system matching images and music to copyright material, and then taking it from there.

This didn’t really cause any problems until the 2017 Four Continents Championship when Fuji TV (remember them?) started putting skating videos on Youtube, and setting parameters such that bootleg videos got blocked.

However this year you’ve had the much more serious Copyright Strike system, basically 3 strikes and you lose your entire channel, and I believe broadcasters like SBS in Korea have been actively pursuing this.

Hence if you’ve had something like 3 videos from recent GPs on your channel and been pursued it’s likely you’ve suffered 3 strikes and lost your entire channel as a result, including videos from many years ago that no one is really interested anymore (not that you’ve got any sort of legal leg to stand on of course).

Hence it’s not true that there’s been a deletion spree of old videos with these being specifically targeted (AFAIK). It’s just that they’ve been caught up in the cross fire. Also there's probably been only a relatively small number of channels chased up, but each has had hundreds if not thousands of videos on them, so it's left a huge hole when the channels have been deleted.

Going forward I would echo those posters who say the solution for long term videos is for the ISU to have further channels just like the Junior Grand Prix, and to load up videos on there when Youtube rights have expired (eventually 2017 Four Continents videos did appear IIRC), plus they're all there for the last few years for GPs and above on EurovisionSports (except 2017 and 2018 Worlds which must surely somewhere in the bowels of the ISU). It would be quite an exercise to take them across, split them up by skater etc., but it's probably the only way to get a reasonably comprehensive set of videos for the last few years on Youtube, which of course is where people are naturally going to look for videos to do with anything.

I agree that it's really sad to see all these videos constantly being deleted- what battle is Youtube trying to win?

What gets me is that it's not like they are offering us an alternative means to watch this stuff. It's gone and then how else are we supposed to view it? :gaah::gaah::gaah::gaah::gaah:

If they had an official YouTube channel where they posted official competition videos then I bet that no one would be complaining. But instead, they delete videos and then don’t replace them so that there’s literally no advertising for figure skating. So many people have discovered it through videos appearing on their recommended. All this is doing is making the sport even harder to access and therefore reducing the audience. Like are the people in charge even thinking?

Wombat1800 said:

I agree that it's really sad to see all these videos constantly being deleted- what battle is Youtube trying to win?

Click to expand...

I don't think YouTube is fighting a battle per se, the battle is fought by TV stations and other copyright holders via YouTube.

And this isn't something that only affects Figure Skating. The same thing happened in gymnastics as well. They even deleted a channel which did nothing but upload their own fan cams. Like, the guy paid his own way to many many competitions and took the videos himself (often training videos that never even were aired by any TV station). And yet his channel was deleted.

MissBeeFarm said:

I don't think YouTube is fighting a battle per se, the battle is fought by TV stations and other copyright holders via YouTube.

And this isn't something that only affects Figure Skating. The same thing happened in gymnastics as well. They even deleted a channel which did nothing but upload their own fan cams. Like, the guy paid his own way to many many competitions and took the videos himself (often training videos that never even were aired by any TV station). And yet his channel was deleted.

Click to expand...

Okay, this makes a lot more sense now, although I still am very annoyed by what is going on. And deleting a channel with just fan cams seems simply ridiculous, if someone takes a video with their own camera I don't see how copyright claims could go very far.

Wombat1800 said:

Okay, this makes a lot more sense now, although I still am very annoyed by what is going on. And deleting a channel with just fan cams seems simply ridiculous, if someone takes a video with their own camera I don't see how copyright claims could go very far.

Click to expand...

Often, the tickets say any photo and video by spectators from the stands is prohibited. When the organising committee sold the exclusive rights to agencies and broadcasters, often bags are searched at the entrance even and I have been to events where stewards ordered people in the stands to put their camera's away.
That was before the days of smartphones in everybody's hand though, nowadays no OC can take a smartphone away, but often camera's are still forbidden.

Edwin said:

Often, the tickets say any photo and video by spectators from the stands is prohibited.

Click to expand...

It's hard to evaluate the legal status of messages that people print on tickets, though. When you go to a public rink there is always a sign that says, you are skating at your own risk. If you break you neck you can't sue us.

Yes you can. That's just a sign. What does the law say?

It's like on the Internet. You go to a site and a notice pops up: "By clicking here you agree to ..."

No I don't. *click*

I remember back in the olden days at ice shows they would always announce, if you want to take pictures, don't use a flash. (I understand that the performers didn't want flashes going off in their faces all the time, but it would be silly to use a flash anyway, like that one little pop from 50 meters away is going to improve the lighting of the skater in the spotlight.)

Edwin said:

Often, the tickets say any photo and video by spectators from the stands is prohibited. When the organising committee sold the exclusive rights to agencies and broadcasters, often bags are searched at the entrance even and I have been to events where stewards ordered people in the stands to put their camera's away.
That was before the days of smartphones in everybody's hand though, nowadays no OC can take a smartphone away, but often camera's are still forbidden.

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone is trying to argue whether there is or isn't a right to pull videos--that's a legal argument and most on this board do not have that expertise. Rather, there is a larger point being made here: even if you have the right to pull the videos it is stupid to do so.

It's not as if this is piracy of an unreleased Game of Thrones episode. In that case there is valuable legal right that is being protected--HBO can argue that with each pirated copy they lose x dollars. With niche sports, these side videos often drive interest and draw new eyes. There is no big money being lost.

Danibellerika said:

What gets me is that it's not like they are offering us an alternative means to watch this stuff. It's gone and then how else are we supposed to view it? :gaah::gaah::gaah::gaah::gaah:

Click to expand...

This is key. The battle against music piracy turned the corner not only because of those crazy lawsuits but because outlets like iTunes allowed customers to buy the music the way they wanted to. You have to provide an alternative lest you just upset your customers.

There appear to be two types of entities that ask YouTube to pull videos: TV networks and companies holding the copyrights on music (e.g., Sony). The latter is much less common. Both, in my opinion, are short-sighted. The TV networks have already broadcast the event. Allowing the videos of portions of the event to be posted helps build a fan base that will watch the next televised event, if possible (not sure why Fuji TV is worried about non-Japanese viewers of videos of their event). The ISU, in its contracts with the networks ought to address allowing videos to be posted after the event is televised. As for music, Sony etc., should realize that figure skating fans are music fans (and music buyers), too. I have bought music on I-tunes that I first heard at a figure skating competition. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Figure skating provides free publicity for music--not much different than plays on the radio that music companies pursue.

jenaj said:

There appear to be two types of entities that ask YouTube to pull videos: TV networks and companies holding the copyrights on music (e.g., Sony). The latter is much less common. Both, in my opinion, are short-sighted. The TV networks have already broadcast the event. Allowing the videos of portions of the event to be posted helps build a fan base that will watch the next televised event, if possible (not sure why Fuji TV is worried about non-Japanese viewers of videos of their event). The ISU, in its contracts with the networks ought to address allowing videos to be posted after the event is televised. As for music, Sony etc., should realize that figure skating fans are music fans (and music buyers), too. I have bought music on I-tunes that I first heard at a figure skating competition. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Figure skating provides free publicity for music--not much different than plays on the radio that music companies pursue.

Click to expand...

I've bought music too! It's great advertising. It's like the radio. I don't listen to the radio anymore, so hearing music that I've never heard before is an incentive for me to purchase.

I think the copyright holders are not being smart, because they are not even making more money by deleting the videos. Instead of removing them, they have so many opportunities to host ads before and within the videos. They can also host all the competition videos on their website, like primetime TV series. In case you don't know, you can go to major network's website to watch in season primetime TV dramas for free. They also have the same amount of commercials as when they were shown on live TV.

I am shocked I can’t find top skaters from Sochi. Youtube has been my lifeline to the sport. I watch when I can. I can’t watch events live and don’t really care to since I can’t be there.

It is idiotic to make skating difficult to watch on YouTube. Some people are indeed short sighted morons. It is sad for folks like me older and with poor computer skills. I have no idea how to dvr. My life is about illness. So when I go to YouTube and look for skaters that were once there and now it is slim pickings it is like the whole world is money mad. Penny wise and pound foolish.

Skating is an elite niche sport and look at the numbers watching events this season. People pretty much left after the Olympics. Yes, every Olympics we see this but this is bad. Will Golden skate even exist the year after Beijing?

Yulia's SL is still there with almost 12 million views. They don't dare to remove it.

This should be a concern for ISU officials right now, and not nonsense about tights and the like. The truth is that I'm not sure that they all know what YouTube is.

Sadly, number of views and popularity means nothing if a video is removed:sad21:

I think the original channel that showed Jason's Riverdance had 6 million views when it was closed? Maybe? Could be 8 mil.... I know it had 3.5 million views in the 10 days after US Nats.

So that one was shut down after a year, but another took its place as the primary Riverdance. Millions of views, and now I can't find that channel

So the third channel now has 2 million views, the other 800,000, etc. No way we'll ever know exactly how many views Riverdance had....

And what the heck, since it is St. Patrick's Day

Jason Brown's US Nats Riverdance

I think the ISU is in a bit of a dilemma. They're the one's who care about figure skating and want to promote it (presumably). However, TV stations have bought the rights, so it's within their rights to get private uploads removed. And let's not kid ourselves, they don't care about promoting figure skating, and they probably don't gain any new viewers by Youtube videos anyway, since their channels are usually country-blocked and the people living in the relevant countries and who are interested in Figure Skating watch those channels already anyway. Nothing new to be gained with Youtube videos and views. Now, what can the ISU do? Having a channel like Ted Barton's JGP channel would be a dream! But -- and this is my guess -- selling rights gets them more money than making a professional Youtube channel, which won't make as much money (despite possible ads and all). So, being a business, ISU of course chooses money over Youtube views. And yes, Youtube creates popularity, which is something the ISU want (presumably), but for now, sad as it is for us fans, short term money gains by selling off rights instead of doing the media work all by themselves is a) easier and b) much more lucrative for them.