I think it’s great when you upload videos that you’ve shot and edited yourself, and it’s obviously fine that you make money from those via advertising. They’re your videos. It’s all good.

I just have a problem with you advertising on videos that you’ve downloaded from Universal’s website and re-uploaded to YouTube before they’ve even had a chance to themselves. That just doesn’t seem right. You shouldn’t be accepting money from those videos (because they’re not your videos), and you shouldn’t be putting them on YouTube before Universal do (because you suck up all the views that THEY should be getting).

If you’d like to continue this conversation, I’d be happy to via e-mail. This has veered off topic for this blog, especially considering that I will now be posting all theme-park related content to InsideTheMagic.net and not here anymore.

I’m actually surprised you’ve gone to the trouble of writing for their permission, considering that your show is technically (no offence) an amateur fan podcast, rather than a professional business endeavour.

You said PR videos are essentially commercials, which makes sense. The weird part is, if you read the Terms and Conditions on Universal’s PR site, they seem to say that you can’t use their content for commercial purposes. The way I interpret that is, you can’t use their content to make money for yourself (such as from the YouTube Partnership Programme). Here’s the quote:

“You may download material displayed on the Site for non-commercial, personal use only, provided you also retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained on the materials. You may not, however, distribute, modify, transmit, reuse, re-post, or use the content of the Site for public or commercial purposes, including the text, images, audio, and video without Universal’s written permission.”

How do you interpret that?

2. You have to keep in mind that PR videos are essentially commercials. Universal is not interested making money off of their videos directly. They don’t run ads on their YouTube channel. They want to reap the benefits of people visiting their parks after seeing the videos – no matter where they see them.

Remember that there needs to be an incentive for media outlets to do what they do. Would your local television news program be on the air if they did not run advertisements during the broadcast? They play clips from Universal’s PR videos during their broadcasts in the same way that I embed them on this site. Do they tell their viewers, “If you want to watch the latest from the Wizarding World, don’t bother to tune in here – just go to Universal’s web site!” That’s not how the media business works.

It’s a win-win game. Universal makes a video. Universal releases the video, hoping that anyone and everyone will pick up on it and spread it in any way they want. Those outlets enjoy the benefit of delivering the exciting content to their visitors – and possibly making a few bucks off advertising in the process. Universal enjoys the benefit of free advertising.

I’m not making a fortune off of this blog or any of my theme park-related endeavors. So I’ll take what I can get, when I can get it.

1. If UniversalPR had uploaded their videos simultaneously to YouTube and their own Media site, would you still download them and re-upload them? I understand that Universal are often slow to get their content on YouTube, but what if that changed?

2. You say that Universal’s goal is to gain YouTube views, regardless of whose channel they’re on, which I understand. The problem is, people who re-upload these videos specifically to make money from them, due to the high number of views that they’re automatically going to get (being Harry Potter related). Surely it should be the people (UniversalPR) that took the time to create the video, and the people featured in it, making money from it. I hope you understand my point. I guess if there was no money involved it wouldn’t seem so bad.

And… I actually had the top video in this post on YouTube before UniversalPR did. So if I had waited for them to upload it, then I wouldn’t have been able to post this as soon as I did.