Deacon Sandy, liturgical abuse, copyright, and you

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Elizium23

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There is currently a firestorm in the Catholic blogosphere and Twitterverse in the name of liturgical correctness. It centers on the parish of Good Shepherd in Wisconsin, headed by a “Parish Director” named Deacon Sandy.

Creative Minority Report blog: Deacon Sandy speaks!
Taking down the Deacon Sandy video
Father Z’s first blog entry
Deacon Sandy rides again!
They just don’t get it
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi: Seeing red

That should be enough to get you started. Suffice it to say that there is rampant liturgical abuse here as well as a swipe at the Holy Father Emeritus. But this thread is in the Popular Media forum, and I intend to talk about copyright here.

Because the firestorm I’m currently in involves the posting and reposting of Deacon Sandy’s videos against his wishes. All these blogs have linked to them and now they are party to illegal activity. You see, the parish’s own YouTube channel posted the original videos, and then took them down when the firestorm erupted. A certain YouTube user, Ben Yanke (no link due to violation) has taken all those videos, and violated the YouTube terms of use multiple times by first downloading and saving them to his own computer (YouTube videos may only be streamed) and then by re-uploading them, in a clear violation of copyright and Deacon Sandy’s express wishes (see CMR blog, Deacon Sandy speaks.)

I wrote privately to Father Z, and publicly to @iPadre and @benedictgal, imploring them to take down the links, because they have made themselves party to copyright violations. I have received pushback from both iPadre and benedictgal, and no change is evident in Father Z’s blog. Are we really so cavalier about copyright law, and respecting the wishes of an ordained clergyman in good standing with the Catholic Church?

This appalls me worse than Deacon Sandy’s abuse ever did. So what if he is off the rails. We have ceded the moral high ground here by pulling ourselves down to his level. Evil may not be done so that good may come of it. And what good will come of a public outcry over a small diocese where none of us are the members? Who’s going to care? If I were Deacon Sandy’s bishop, I’d first be on the line to the respective bishops of these ordained priests who are violating the Deacon’s wishes and the law, and I’d ask those bishops why these priests think it’s any of their business in the first place.

I know that copyright law is a controversial topic even on Catholic Answers, but personally I feel it is cut and dried. Our nation has passed copyright and intellectual property laws for the common good, the Church has never condemned any of these policies, and so we are bound to obey them as just laws. Or we sin just as surely as when we violate a liturgical rubric.
 
I think you are correct in this. This is the intellectual property, for better or for worse, of the Deacon’s or his parish’s.

Of course, if it’s subpoenaed by the courts, it’s a different matter but I don’t see much chance of that happening.
 
Could somebody please summarize or “TL DR” (too long, didn’t read) this for me? :confused:
 
YouTube will take down pirated videos if the copyright holder requests that it be done.

Has Deacon Sandy, or his associates, been notified of the abuse and given links to the pirated videos?
 
Elizium23 said:
There is currently a firestorm in the Catholic blogosphere and Twitterverse in the name of liturgical correctness. It centers on the parish of Good Shepherd in Wisconsin, headed by a “Parish Director” named Deacon Sandy.

That should be enough to get you started. Suffice it to say that there is rampant liturgical abuse here as well as a swipe at the Holy Father Emeritus. But this thread is in the Popular Media forum, and I intend to talk about copyright here.

[snip]

Because the firestorm I’m currently in involves the posting and reposting of Deacon Sandy’s videos against his wishes. All these blogs have linked to them and now they are party to illegal activity. You see, the parish’s own YouTube channel posted the original videos, and then took them down when the firestorm erupted. A certain YouTube user, Ben Yanke (no link due to violation) has taken all those videos, and violated the YouTube terms of use multiple times by first downloading and saving them to his own computer (YouTube videos may only be streamed) and then by re-uploading them, in a clear violation of copyright and Deacon Sandy’s express wishes (see CMR blog, Deacon Sandy speaks.)

This appalls me worse than Deacon Sandy’s abuse ever did. So what if he is off the rails. We have ceded the moral high ground here by pulling ourselves down to his level. Evil may not be done so that good may come of it. And what good will come of a public outcry over a small diocese where none of us are the members?
[snip]
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I’m way more appalled by Deacon Sandy than by any technical violations of copyright laws or YouTube terms of use.
I’m sure it would have been more proper for Fr Z et al. to post a link to the video rather than embed it. Technically the first is legal and the second is a violation at least of YT’s terms of use and maybe copyright.

Pretty much there are two types of postings on YT; blatantly illegal like copyrighted music videos, movies, &c which deprive copyright holders of income.

The rest are amateur stuff that people put out for the public to see whether laughing babies, cute cats or vidieos about their parish, um, “faith community”. I’m sure the vast of folks who put this stuff are glad to have their stuff seen at all, doubly so that it is being shared whether by linking or embedding. I bet the good deacon wouldn’t have minded his video being spread around until the controversy landed on his head.

I should add there is a third type on YT, semi-pros I guess. These are folks who get income by getting visits & ad-clicks on their vlogs or YT channels & they are also hurt by embedding. One example is probably CP Grey (excellent!).
 
I work on Wikipedia and among the things we aggressively remove from article edits are links to copyright violations. This is considered contributory infringement. I frankly don’t see a difference between linking and embedding something, it’s still linked.
 
OK, so maybe the copyright was violated by this Ben Yanke, Fr Z, and others. But keep in mind this is as Catholic forum! We can’t forget that what this deacon is doing is rather serious.

Honestly, if you ask me, I think it’s good to shine a light on his disobedience. Sin and disobedience hates being seen, so I think that the people supposedly violating the copyright are also doing something good by exposing this. It ceased being a local matter when he posted them online.
 
Elizium23 said:
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This appalls me worse than Deacon Sandy’s abuse ever did.
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Somewhere in all of the ambiguity of Copyright law and the internet and such, you have lost your priorities.

When you defend The deacon as clergy in good standing of the CHurch and rail against a Holy Priest like Fr z. You are losing your credibility.

What moral responsibility do you have by linking to their sites as well? Are you encoraging more copyright violations?

It is such a silly thing to be outraged by this but not by the other. Someone has their liturgical values skewed.😉
 
I think I need to clarify “embedding.”

The first way is to licitly link directly to YouTube. This is legal. If John Smith removes his video from YouTube, you don’t see it on your page.

The second is to illicitly download a video from YouTube, store it separately, then embed it on your page.
 
Miserissima said:
I think I need to clarify “embedding.”

The first way is to licitly link directly to YouTube. This is legal. If John Smith removes his video from YouTube, you don’t see it on your page.

The second is to illicitly download a video from YouTube, store it separately, then embed it on your page.
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The first way is legal as long as John Smith’s copy is legal. If it’s not, then your embedding is contributory infringement.
 
Miserissima said:
I think I need to clarify “embedding.”

The first way is to licitly link directly to YouTube. This is legal. If John Smith removes his video from YouTube, you don’t see it on your page.

The second is to illicitly download a video from YouTube, store it separately, then embed it on your page.
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You do realize that embedding YouTube videos and linking to YouTube videos is not functionally or legally different, right?
 
jamessmith said:
You do realize that embedding YouTube videos and linking to YouTube videos is not functionally or legally different, right?
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Functionally, it is a bit different. YouTube provides for embedded versions that lack the YouTube decorations, ad banners, and other bits that come with visiting a YouTube page. Functionally it permits the video itself to appear and be played within your own web page, blog, forum, or what have you. Providing a hyperlink to YouTube doesn’t do that in the same way.
 
jamessmith said:
You do realize that embedding YouTube videos and linking to YouTube videos is not functionally or legally different, right?
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Thought that was inherently known and why I gave the second part of my answer.

I can licitly go to YouTube and have the option to put the video on my page, or I can link to the YouTube page on which the video is found.

It is not licit to download the video itself, store it, and then embed it on my own.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
When you defend The deacon as clergy in good standing of the CHurch and rail against a Holy Priest like Fr z. You are losing your credibility.
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I don’t think that’s being done here. I would never come within a mile of that deacon’s church but intellectual property is still intellectual property. Granted he was instrumental in getting the video published and distributed and succeeded in doing so but the deacon does have the right to recall that permission, unless he had already sold or turned over those copyrights.

That said, the deacon isn’t entirely blameless, since he did himself borrow demeaning pictures of the pope to post inside the church. This would make a nice court case IMO.
 
Miserissima said:
Thought that was inherently known and why I gave the second part of my answer.

I can licitly go to YouTube and have the option to put the video on my page, or I can link to the YouTube page on which the video is found.

It is not licit to download the video itself, store it, and then embed it on my own.
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Ok, so you’re not talking about embedding. Anyone can embed any video (more or less). You’re talking about the act of downloading a video and re-uploading it.
 
Here is a bit background:

There was a blog that embedded it. After the Deacon respectfully requested that the blog author remove it, she declined. Around this time, an agent of this parish removed the video.

Blog author found an illegally downloaded copy and either linked to it on another page or embedded it on his or her own.

Blog author, I believe, has removed the embedded version.

There is a difference between embedding a video (click here in this box to play) on one’s website or creating a link (click these words to open at website x) to where it ours hosted elsewhere.
 
Miserissima said:
Here is a bit background:

There was a blog that embedded it. After the Deacon respectfully requested that the blog author remove it, she declined. Around this time, an agent of this parish removed the video.

Blog author found an illegally downloaded copy and either linked to it on another page or embedded it on his or her own.

Blog author, I believe, has removed the embedded version.

There is a difference between embedding a video (click here in this box to play) on one’s website or creating a link (click these words to open at website x) to where it ours hosted elsewhere.
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Embedded youtube videos are still hosted on YouTube.
 
jamessmith said:
Embedded youtube videos are still hosted on YouTube.
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There’s the rub. The blog author at first embedded the video from YouTube. Someone illegally downloaded it for dissemination. The author either linked to the latter version our embedded it. It was not, by the end of the tale, hosted on YouTube.
 
Miserissima said:
There’s the rub. The blog author at first embedded the video from YouTube. Someone illegally downloaded it for dissemination. The author either linked to the latter version our embedded it. It was not, by the end of the tale, hosted on YouTube.
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Yes it was. It was swiped from YouTube and reuploaded to YouTube in a different account. It is still on YouTube, the difference is that the first upload was legal, provided by the copyright owner (Good Shepherd Parish) on their own channel, and the second upload was both a violation of YouTube’s Terms and a copyright violation on an individual user’s channel (Ben Yanke) with permission explicitly revoked by Deacon Sandy.
 
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