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is it legal to post movie trailers on your site?

by scott33
13 replies
I am wanting to start a movie trailer site, and was wondering if there is any legal issues I should know about, the trailers won't be hosted on my site but on a video sharing site like youtube, will youtube pull movie trailers?
#legal #movie #post #site #trailers
  • Profile picture of the author Zabrina
    It's technically not legal -- movie trailers are copyrighted -- so Youtube can pull them at any time.
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  • Profile picture of the author Pete Egeler
    Second what Zabrina said. All movie materials are copyright protected, and if they don't get you now, they'll get you later.

    Two choices: Contact the producing company for permission, or forget the idea. (Unless you've got enough gibs ($$$) to go to court on a regular basis.

    Pete
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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    If you want to start a movie trailer site, there's a perfectly legal and legit way to do this.

    Many movie studios have their own channels on youtube and they post the movie trailers sometimes, themselves. Simply find these videos on youtube, and use the embed feature to embed the trailers on your site.

    So their content is protected as you are merely linking to their youtube video, but as it's embedded it still shows up on your site.

    Perfectly legal if you do it that way.
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    • Profile picture of the author incogneato
      Originally Posted by redicelander View Post

      If you want to start a movie trailer site, there's a perfectly legal and legit way to do this.

      Many movie studios have their own channels on youtube and they post the movie trailers sometimes, themselves. Simply find these videos on youtube, and use the embed feature to embed the trailers on your site.

      So their content is protected as you are merely linking to their youtube video, but as it's embedded it still shows up on your site.

      Perfectly legal if you do it that way.
      Does this mean anything you find on YouTube can be legally embedded on your website? How did you come to this conclusion? I want to stay within the law at all times but couldn't find any information on this.
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      • Profile picture of the author dadamson
        Originally Posted by incogneato View Post

        Does this mean anything you find on YouTube can be legally embedded on your website? How did you come to this conclusion? I want to stay within the law at all times but couldn't find any information on this.
        That is absolutely correct. I did a similar idea to your website where I wanted to embed videos from YouTube. I did a LOT of research and basically, yes, you can embed anything you like from YouTube.

        If you host the video on your own site, you will be reponsible for the content, but when embedding from youtube you are not liable for any copyright material, the person who actually uploaded it is.

        If the video was in breach of copyright law (like a LOT of YouTube vids) and it is taken to court (unlikely), then the user who uploaded the video is completely responsible.

        The only downfall for you is that the video will get pulled and you won't know until you check.

        As mentioned above, getting trailors from a movie studio or other authoritive YouTube channel would be the way to go. - Just don't download the vids and host them yourself and you will have no problems.

        Of course, the movie studio could pull or move the video for whatever reason.

        =)
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      • Profile picture of the author Roger Pack
        Yeah there's some option when they upload it as to whether it's embeddable or not so...my assumption is if they upload it with that option, they're allowing that. Though youtube itself "might" insert annoying ads before...

        I wonder how web media sites like "common sense media" get their own copies of trailers though...hmm...there must be someway to contact the studios and somehow get your own copies [?] or something [?]
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    • Profile picture of the author nicheblogger75
      Originally Posted by J Bold View Post

      If you want to start a movie trailer site, there's a perfectly legal and legit way to do this.

      Many movie studios have their own channels on youtube and they post the movie trailers sometimes, themselves. Simply find these videos on youtube, and use the embed feature to embed the trailers on your site.

      So their content is protected as you are merely linking to their youtube video, but as it's embedded it still shows up on your site.

      Perfectly legal if you do it that way.
      If the video is posted on YouTube and they have the embed function enabled there is no problem with copyright.

      I see hundreds of legitimate popular movie review sites that embed the trailers onto their sites.

      I also see hundreds of sites that embed full movies and TV shows that are uploaded to YouTube on their sites.

      Absolutely not illegal to embed a video from YouTube on your website.

      How can you be prosecuted for copyright infringement when you are not the one who stole the content and you are not even hosting the actual content on your server?

      I suggest you do some of your own research before asking for legal advice in an Internet Marketing forum.

      And as far as movie trailers go, the movie companies put out trailers to advertise the movie, so they would not only NOT have a problem with people embedding them on their websites, they would WELCOME the free advertising.
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  • Profile picture of the author scott33
    good points, i assume the accounts with movie trailers on youtube are verified, or drives enough traffic to the videos that the companies isn't going to be mad.

    I thought about linking to legit videos on youtube
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  • Profile picture of the author scott33
    I heard stories of companies attacking third party sites in the piracy game.
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    • Profile picture of the author furryfootedmonkey
      You can embed anything that has the embed permission granted BUT if the user did not have permission to post the video in the first place YOU CAN BE held responsible for broadcasting/promoting/pushing/distributing (whatever you favourite word is) Illegally... So like the previous comment stated if you are embedding from an official channel that you know owns the content then its fine.

      The comment people make about "well no one will find out" by all means crack on but if no one is going to find out e.g. "see your website"... why bother making one!
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      • Profile picture of the author Roger Pack
        Typically I "imagine" the most studios do against somebody that reposts a trailer is send youtube a "takedown notice" since it's sooo easy legally, etc. for them. But YMMV
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  • Profile picture of the author nethead01
    There is always a way to get around things and by doing it the legal way. Using youtube is a great idea but im sure if you think and dig a little deeper you will find out other ways as well. Like one poster said if you contact the right person and get permission you might even get your hands on some better things. If you get permission to promote on your website im sure they will even let you promote on youtube and you could make some more money that way. I mean I never did the research on how you get the permission to promote the materials but there must be some way or how else would all the videos get on youtube in the first place..

    So dig deeper and become an expert at something before you start it.
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  • Profile picture of the author quadagon
    I'm sure that after 6 years of waiting that the OP appreciates your valuable input Roger.
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