Official AMV Distribution Center - Online

[Vlad G Pohnert]

now while it sounds like a good idea , im gonna have to agree with leathelanime ... this sounds highly illegal. I urge the creators to seriously consider consulting a lawyer before proceeding . I would never do anything , but there are bigger assholes that would.


www.assailantstudios.com (coming soon!)

Consult a layer??? Making AMVs are by definition illegal as with having them avaiable for download. Theis idea of the distribution center is no different then having then available for download on the web! The only thing that would make it worse would be if meny was being made. There is no profit being made here and everything is listed is by the creator's permission.

So if you want to be totaly legal about the whole thing, consulting a lawyer won't help since the only way is to stop making them in the first place....

Vlad

Vlad

[Red Wolf]

Thank you, Vlad.

[jonmartensen]

The only money that could possiblly be made is if someone puts in too many stamps And that would be more like saving money for red wolf (wouldn't have to purchase stamps for his personal leters )

I think people need to read everything before they jump into a situation telling others how to do stuff, or how not to.

[TaranT]

While I agree with Vlad's intent, I think we need to be careful about semantics. It is not illegal to make AMVs. As far as I know, there is no law anywhere in this country that says, "Thou shalt not make AMVs."

There are laws against using media content created by others, but these laws are subject to exceptions, some of which are firm and some of which are not. For example, parody is a protected form of expression, even when using other people's material, and we know there are AMVs which are parodies. Also, if you paid for the material, then you can use it to make all the AMVs you want and the authorities won't bother you (anti-porn or other content laws may make an exception here). Showing your AMVs to other people is also legal, but only in limited circumstances.

To quote the EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation): "There are no clear-cut rules for deciding what's fair use and there are no "automatic" classes of fair uses. Fair use is decided by a judge, on a case by case basis (emph. added) after balancing the four factors listed in section 107 of the Copyright statute....Courts are more likely to find fair use where the use is for noncommercial purposes...."

With this in mind, I'm not even sure that non-profit distribution of AMVs is illegal. But without a team of high-powered lawyers, it's best to assume the worst.

More information about fair-use can be found here:
http://www.eff.org/IP/eff_fair_use_faq.html
http://www.eff.org/IP/
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/

**********

[Freako]

ya , thats all i was trying to say !




www.stripcreator.com/~freako

[Vlad G Pohnert]

Yes, there is no law making them in the privacy of your home. It's when you show them publically (conventions, etc) or distrubute them that makes it illegal.

My only point was that by all means care should be taken, but lawyers really have nothing ot do with this. Anime companies don't have a big problem with it as long as someone doesn't start making money. Besides, if you use short clips from anime in a video, you could argue fair use. The music on the other hand is the problem since the compleate (or most of it) song is used. At the moment, the music companies are way too busy fighting all the piracy going on, but if they ever win and start having more time, they could start going after web sites and Conventions that feature AMVs.

In the end, I don't think this have anything to do with lawyers, but more of a risk that one day the music inductry may not see the distribution of AMVs the distribution of thier music and put a stop to it....

Vlad

[Red Wolf]

It looks like we may be starting to put together a Christmas AMV Compilation CD for the AMV Distribution Center. Check out the AMV Holiday thread for details.

[Kracus]

do you burn in vcd format or just the files (be it amv, mpeg, mpg or -gasp- wmv or rms)

Whether the CD is a data CD or VCD is up to the creator. If they submit a VCD, I copy it as a VCD. If they submit it as a data CD, I copy it as a data CD. I will not make any changes to the CD since we want the creaotrs to have full creative control.

BTW can we enforce a NO low quality rms and wmvs rule -_-

No. The site does suggest that people use a higher quality codec such as MPEG or DivX but I will accept what they send. The catalog will list the file formats found on the CD so you can avoid the lower formats if you wish. Hopefully seeing that the lower quality formats do not get requested as often will induce people to make a better CD but it will not be an enforced rule.

Note: I am updating the site's FAQ with each post on here so be sure to check there for more details on these questions. If you see a question missing shoot me an email.

I don't know about everyone else, but I've created some of my files in .rm and .wmv, but they haven't been any difference in quality from .avi cause I don't produce a low quality version. My wmv and rm files are still large with good quality. I have seen those .rm files that are under 10 mbs, they suck, I've never created any like that other than the one I have linked off this site and that one is only a 1 minute. I'm preparing to send off my CD by tomorrow or Wednesday and have my profile updated with the rest of my CDs.

[Red Wolf]

Updating the AMV Distribution Center's site right now. We have four new CDs added to the catalog which brings the total number of CDs available to 33.

Kracus, I'll shoot you an email with the information I'll need on your CD. Whatever format you want to use is fine with me, I only suggest certain formats because I find those to be the most popular.

[VegettoEX]

I don't know about everyone else, but I've created some of my files in .rm and .wmv, but they haven't been any difference in quality from .avi cause I don't produce a low quality version. My wmv and rm files are still large with good quality. I have seen those .rm files that are under 10 mbs, they suck, I've never created any like that other than the one I have linked off this site and that one is only a 1 minute. I'm preparing to send off my CD by tomorrow or Wednesday and have my profile updated with the rest of my CDs.

I don't think anyone will argue (OK, so maybe someone will) that RealVideo *cannot* produce decent looking files. It can. I've seen some RealVideo files that achieve quite nice bitrates (although they are generally produced by a version of RealProducer that has been legally purchased, which unlocks encoding at much higher bitrates).

The "problem" that many people see with RealVideo files is that they're simply VERY inconvenient to play on most systems. RealPlayer, RealOne, whatever the bloody hell it's called now-a-days.. is a real strain on many CPUs, looks ugly, and isn't always compatible. If you encode a video in the latest Real "codec," someone's RealPlayer 4 might not play it. You can't assume that everyone's going to have the latest version of RealPlayer, especially when they're SO intrusive upon installation.

Windows Media encoder is a slightly different issue. I'm not sure what the highest bitrate allowed by Windows Media Encoder / Movie Maker is, but from what I've seen, it's not that high. Using great looking source footage can somewhat fool the eye, but not to a great extent. They're relatively convenient to play on a PC (other than Media Player constantly asking to download new codecs since every person seems to want to encode their WMV videos differently) since WMP is generally the preferred video player, but you also have the risk of a video that's not so hot looking / sounding.

You could very well have the same argument for MPEG-2 and DivX (convenience and lack of understanding among different formats), but chances are that people who request MPEG-2 and DivX files know the differences between the various formats. "RealVideo" falls under a VERY broad category.

It comes down to this: you're sending out your videos to be seen. You should want your video presented in the best form possible. If you see a "bad" looking video, you probably won't give it as much of a chance as a "good" looking video, despite what the content of said videos may be. If you're going to go all-out in getting your videos seen, you should go all-out in making them look and sound as best you can :).