How to Download Videos from YouTube

I do a some video stuff and have multiple YouTube accounts (and tons of accounts for other video sharing web sites). I even have one just for the content related to this blog and web site, my YouTube account SACReleases here. 

Because of my activities in that area I am getting from time to time personal emails from people who want to use a video offline for something and ask me if I would send it to them. I kind of got tired of explaining the same stuff over and over again and decided to write a blog post about the subject instead. 

Videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites can be downloaded in most cases without the need for jumping  through too many hoops. There are exceptions, but I will address those as well. Getting the video down to your hard disk is usually the least of the problem. In most cases do you already have the video on your hard disk, you just don't know it and also not where you can find it.

Your web browser was probably caching the video and saved it in its temporary folder for some time, which depends on your individual browser settings.

However, getting to this cached video is a bit cumbersome, but  I will explain it as the last option anyway. This option does not cost any money and no software installation is needed. With some experience is this method also the faster one, compared to others that are also free and do not require the installation of any software. The option has another catch and that is the problem that the downloaded video is probably in Adobe's Flash Video format, which is great for viewing on the web, but isn't much usable anywhere else. Chances are that any editing software that you might own or downloaded (there is plenty of free stuff available too) does not support the FLV Flash video format. That means that you need to convert the video to a more practical, which is not possible without some special (and usually commercial) tools.

Some folks asked me for the video that they can embed it into a Microsoft Power Point presentation. Flash Videos cannot be used in Power Point. I just wanted to mention that.

Option 1 - Online Downloaders

This option is probably the best one for the occasional video downloader, like the one who wants to use a video in a Power Point presentation or something like that.

The good thing is that this option does not require any downloads and installation of software on your computer. It is also free, which is always nice.

There are plenty of web sites out there that let you download and convert a video, by simply providing a link to the video at the video sharing web site.

The conversion on the services end and the download that follows might take a bit of time, some services also have limits for the length of the video they download. Also, the service must explicitly support a specific video sharing web site. Pretty much all of them support YouTube, but beyond that, things do not look as good anymore. Here a few of those online downloader's to choose from. 

Vixy.net

Link to Web Site

Supports conversion of Flash Video / FLV file to MPEG4 (AVI/MOV/MP4/MP3/3GP) file online. On that site, enter into the text box in the middle of the page the URL, such as: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HbbUgHNM8Q

Press "Start" (the default format to save the video should be .avi). It may take a while to do the download and conversion. Vixy.net also offers now a desktop video downloader for Windows PC and MAC OS users available for download on their web site.

YouConvertIt.com

Link to Web Site

YouConvertIt.com is an online tool with many features beyond the simple downloading of videos from video sharing web sites like YouTube. It is able to convert hundreds of different  video, audio, image, document and archive formats to make it a useful tool whenever you need to be able to convert a file that you receive from somebody else in a format that you cannot handle to something that you can work with.

You can upload files from your hard disk to YouConvertIt.com for conversion. If the conversion takes a little bit longer, no problem, because you do not have to stick around until it is done. Simply provide your email address and YouConvertIt will send you an email notification with download LINK to receive the converted file once it is done.

The video downloader is as simple as it can be. You just copy and paste the URL to the video on YouTube or any other popular video sharing site and YouConvertIt will extract the video file for you and if you like to, also converts it into one of the many available video formats that might better suit your needs. Also here, you have the option to provide your email address to receive a notification when the downloaded and converted video file is ready for you to download.

Here is a list of the supported file formats, to give you a better idea about the versatility of this free online tool.

AUDIO Formats: AAC (Advanced Audio Coding File), AIF (Audio Interchange File Format), AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format), MP3 (MPEG Audio Layer 3), OGG (Ogg Vorbis Codec Compressed Multimedia File), RA (Real Audio Sound),WAV (Windows Waveform Sound),WMA (Windows Media Audio)

VIDEO Formats: 3GP (3GP Video File), ASF (Advanced Systems Format Media), AVI (Microsoft Video for Windows Movie), FLV (Flash Video File), IVR (Internet Video Record File), MOV (QuickTime Movie), MP4 (Mpeg-4 Video)
MPEG (MPEG Video File), MPG (MPEG Video File), RM (RealMedia File), RV (Real Video File),SWF (Shockwave Flash), WMV (Windows Media Video)

DOCUMENT Formats: CSV (Text CSV), DOC (Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP), EPDF (Encapsulated Portable Document Format), EPI (Encapsulated PostScript Interchange format), EPS (Adobe Encapsulated PostScript), EPS2 (Adobe Level II Encapsulated PostScript), EPS3 (Adobe Level III Encapsulated PostScript), EPSF (Encapsulated PostScript), EPSI (Adobe Encapsulated PostScript Interchange format), EPT (Encapsulated PostScript Interchange TIFF Preview), HTM (HyperText Markup Language), HTML (HyperText Markup Language), INFO (UNIX GNU Info Reader File), ODG (OpenDocument Drawing),ODP  (OpenDocument Presentation), ODS (OpenDocument Spreadsheet), ODT (OpenDocument Text), OTG (OpenDocument Drawing Template), OTP (OpenDocument Presentation Template), OTS (OpenDocument Spreadsheet Template), OTT (OpenDocument Text Template), PDF (PDF-Portable Document Format), POT (Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP Template), PPT (Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP), PS (Adobe PostScript file), PS2 (Adobe Level II PostScript file), PS3 (Adobe Level III PostScript file), PSD (Photoshop Format), RTF (Rich Text Format), SDA (StarDraw 5.0), SDC (StarCalc 5.0), SDW (StarWriter),SHTML (Hypertext Markup Language client-side image map), STC (OpenOffice.og 1.0 Spreadsheet Template), STI (OpenOffice.org 1.0 Presentation Template), STW (OpenOffice.og 1.0 Text Document Template), SVM (SVM - StarView Metafile), SXC (OpenOffice.org 1.0 Spreadsheet), SXD (OpenOffice.org 1.0 Drawing), SXI (OpenOffice 1.0 Presentation), SXW (OpenOffice.og 1.0 Text Document), TXT (TEXT), VOR (StarWriter 5.0 Template), XHTML (XHTML), XLS (Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP), XLT (Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP Template)

IMAGE Formats: ART (PFS: 1st Publisher), AVS (AVS X image), BMP (Windows OS/2 Bitmap Graphics),CIN (Kodak Cineon Bitmap File), CUR (Microsoft Cursor Icon), CUT (DR Halo), DCM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) ), DCX (ZSoft IBM PC multi-page Paintbrush image),DIB (Microsoft Windows Device Independent Bitmap), DPX (Digital Moving Picture Exchange), EMF (Extended (Enhanced) Windows Metafile Format), EXIF (Exif digital camera binary data), FAX (Group 3 TIFF), FITS (Flexible Image Transport System), GIF (Graphic Interchange Format), GRAY (Raw Gray Samples), ICB (Truevision Targa image (ICB)), ICO (Windows Icon), ICON (Windows Icon), JNG (JPEG Network Graphic Bitmap), JP2 (JPEG-2000 JP2 File), JPC (JPEG-2000 Code Stream Bitmap), JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group JFIF format (62)), JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group JFIF format), MIFF (Magick image file format), MNG (Multi-image Network Graphic Animation),MONO (Bi-level bitmap in least-significant-byte first order), MPC (Magick Persistent Cache image file format), MSL (Magick Scripting Language), MTV (MTV Raytracing image format), MVG (Magick Vector Graphics),OTB (On-the-air Bitmap), P7 (Xv`s Visual Schnauzer thumbnail format), PALM (Palm pixmap), PBM (UNIX Portable Bitmap Graphic), PCD (Photo-CD Image), PCDS (Photo-CD Image), PCL (HP Page Control Language), PCX (ZSoft IBM PC Paintbrush file), PDB (Palm Database ImageViewer Format), PFA (Postscript Type 1 font (ASCII)), PFB (Postscript Type 1 font (binary)), PGM (Portable graymap format (gray scale)), PICON (Personal Icon), PICT (Macintosh Quickdraw/PICT Drawing), PIX (Alias/Wavefront RLE image format), PNG (Portable (Public) Network Graphic), PNM (PBM Portable Any Map Graphic Bitmap), PPM (Portable pixmap format (color)), PTIF (Pyramid encoded TIFF), PWP (Seattle File Works multi-image file), RLA (Alias/Wavefront image file), RLE (Utah Run length encoded image file), SGI (Irix RGB image), SUN (SUN Rasterfile), TGA (Truevision Targa image (TGA)),THUMBNAIL (Thumbnail), TIF (Tagged Image Format File), TIFF (Tagged Image Format File), TIM (PSX TIM file), UYVY (Interleaved YUV Raw Image), VDA (Truevision Targa image (VDA)), VICAR (VICAR rasterfile format), VIFF (Khoros Visualization Image File Format)
WBMP (Wireless Bitmap File Format), WMF (Windows Metafile), WPG (Word Perfect Graphics File), XBM (X Windows system bitmap, black and white only), XCF (GIMP image), XPM (X Windows system pixmap), XWD (X Windows system window dump), YUV (Color Space Pixel Format)

ARCHIVE Formats: 7Z (7Z File), ACE (ACE File), ARJ (ARJ File), BZ2 (BZ2 File), BZA (BZA File), CAB (CAB File), GZ (GZ File), RAR (RAR File), TAR (TAR File), TGZ (TGZ File), YZ1 (YZ1 File), ZIP (ZIP File)

Javimoya.com

Link to Web Site

Available in English, Spanish, German and Japanese

Zamzar.com

Link to Web Site

Download and convert videos and other documents from other web sites or from your local hard disk. 100 MB file size limit for the free version. Supported file formats:

• Image formats: bmp , gif , ico , jpg , pcx , png , tga , tiff , wbmp , wmf; 
• Doc formats: csv , doc , docx , html , odp , ods , odt , pcx , pdf , ppt , pptx , ps , pub , rtf , txt , wpd , wps , xls , xlsx , xml; 
• Music formats: aac , ac3 , flac , m4a , mmf , mp3 , ogg , ra , ram , wav , wma; 
• Video formats: 3gp , 3g2 , avi , flv , gvi , iphone , ipod , m4v , mov , mp4 , mpg , ogg , rm , rmvb , vob , wmv; 
• Other formats: 7z , tar.bz2 , cab , lzh , rar , tar , tar.gz , yz1 , zip

Offers file storage and sharing service (not free), starting at $7 per month for 5 GB. Paid accounts also increase the number of possible concurrent conversions and the maximum file size.

Bad: opens multiple pop-ups

Media-Convert.com

Link to Web Site

Online file converter/downloader/file hosting with advanced settings, such as resizing, or splitting into smaller pieces for video files. Available in almost 20 languages.

Supports even more formats than Zamzar. Some good info's about which cell phones support which formats. Conversion of files on your hard drive or on the web, requiring the URL of the source document. Maximum file size is 150 MB. Free and anonymous file hosting is also provided. Files are kept for 120 days and will then be deleted. You can even upload uncompressed documents and have media-convert compress it for you with the tool of your choice, e.g. ZIP, RAR, LZH etc.

Bad: User interface is confusing, especially for non-tech savvy users

Other Online Tools/Services

• XConv.com
• KeepVid.com 

There are tons of other sites out there that do this. Some even offer code or widgets for other webmasters and bloggers to add to their sites that they can offer video downloads from popular video sharing web sites.

Option 2 - Desktop Downloader (recommended)

You can also download a PC based tool here, which does the same like the online tool, but on your own computer. You might want to do that for the future, in case you need to download another video one day or if download videos frequently. As their online counterpart, these downloader tools are limited regarding the video sharing web sites they support to download videos from.

Win XP, Vista, Mac  (Intel/PPC)

The desktop tool saves automatically the downloaded video with a random file name on your windows desktop. You can move it via windows explorer somewhere else or use it from right there with MS Power Point or any other application that you are using for your school presentation.

Vixy.net also offers a downloader for Windows PC and MAC OS for free download from their web site.

Some commercial converters come with video downloader plug-ins for IE and/or FireFox as a bonus, such as the "Sothink Web Video Downloader for FireFox" or "Moyea Flash Downloader Plug-In for Internet Explorer".

  If you want to get videos downloaded to your local hard drive that are beyond the ability of the regular download scripts and desktop tools, I recommend to use some more serious tools, such as stream rippers/downloaders.

With them is it even possible to download a video where you do not know the URL to the video, because the video is streamed from a different specialized video streaming server and the web site where you watch the video does not actually host physical video files and only relays a real-time video stream to the user at the time of the request. In that case, nothing is even stored in you local browser cache.

For example video sharing sites like Ustream.tv use this method. The best and really working stream rippers are not available for free, except for a few days trial period where you can test the software before you have to decide, if you want to buy it or not.

Jaksta Stream Recorder ($35)

Product Details - Free Trial Download - Buy Now

WMRecorder ($49.95)

WM Recorder  by Alex Urich, published via Applian Technologies

Product Details

Replay Media Catcher ($39.95)

Replay Media Catcher by Applian Technologies

Product Detail

Option 3 - Browser Plug-In Scripts

A kind of "in between" solution is the use of special browser plug-ins and user scripts, if your web browser supports one or the other. Mozilla FireFox users have probably the most options and choices available to them, but there are also some solutions for Microsoft Internet Explorer.

One problem with all of those solution is the lack of video conversion. You get easily to the video in Flash format, but that's about it. If you want to use the video in another application, manual conversion, using third party conversion tools will be necessary. If this is not a problem and you just want to be able to watch the videos without being connected to the Internet or only have a slow connection. You can keep the Flash files as you downloaded them and use a free desktop Flash movie player to watch the movies when you feel like it. For example the GodLikeMouse (GLM) Flash Video Player http://glm-flv.sourceforge.net/

FireFox Plug-Ins

FireFox has a plug-in called Grease Monkey Script for Mozilla FireFox. This Plug-in allows the execution of custom User Scripts, which are plenty available for all kinds of purposes, including downloading of videos from video sharing web sites like YouTube.

Grease Monkey Script for Mozilla Firefox  - get it here or here

You can find those scripts at UserScripts.org. Here is the link that performs a search for YouTube Video Downloader scripts.

Here is a screen shot that shows the FireFox browser with installed Grease Monkey plug-in and some downloader scripts running, while I was accessing a video page at YouTube.com.

Real Player Download Plug-in (IE Users)

Link to Web Site

I am not a fan of Real Player, because of all the unwanted ballast that they try to force down your throat, but once you declined all the unnecessary junk, one feature of the current version of the player comes in very handy for Microsoft Internet Explorer users. Real Player installs a browser plug-in that detects videos in web pages, not only YouTube, pretty much any page that has a video embedded, Macromedia (Adobe) Flash, Apple QuickTime, Windows Media etc. See the screen shot below that shows the Real Player plug-in in action. Straight forward and simple to use. The video format depends  on the source video on the web site. It is most of the time Flash, so you still have the problem of possible conversion, if you want to use the video for something else than just viewing.

Option 4 - Browser Cache

The old fashioned and most painful way... but most of the time working also.

I demonstrate how it works with Internet Explorer. It's also possible with Google Chrome. I don't know if it is that simple with Mozilla Firefox and I didn't try it with other browsers like Apple's Safari browser or Opera.

The following steps only work for Windows XP users with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

1. Locate your user directory under the "Documents and Settings" directory on your local hard disk.  The default location is usually C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME. USERNAME could be just your Windows login user name  plus maybe followed by "." and either the computer name or the domain name, if you are part of a business network.
2. Every user has a directory called "Local Settings" under its user directory, but the video file for the video file that you just watched is only cached under your own user.   Select the "Local Settings" folder and then the folder "Temporary Internet Files" below that.
   
   Note: In order to be able to “see” those folders in Windows Explorer, you must have enabled the option “Show hidden files and folders” under “Tools\Folder Options”, “View” Tab and Node: “Files and Folders”  in Windows Explorer (thanks to the person who pointed that out to me in the blog comments).
   
3. You can only find the  cached video file in this directory, if the browser downloaded it entirely. Watch the whole video on the web site first, if you want to make sure that the browser had the chance to cache the whole thing. Web video players usually indicate via a separate progress bar, who much of the video they have cached, next to the play progress bar.
4. The "Temporary Internet Files" is usually packed with all kinds of files, images, CSS style sheets, JavaScript and HTML files etc. I recommend to sort the files in that folder by Size, showing the largest files first. The temp folder does not behave like a regular folder and also has different columns. The "Name" of the files is also weird in some cases, such as video files from YouTube. Cached YouTube videos usually start with "get_video?video_id=XXXXXX ...". Compare that name with the URL of the video page in your browser. It should have identical values after the video_id= parameter. Select the matching file and press CTRL-C in Windows Explorer, select a folder where you want to put the video and press CTRL-V. Windows Explorer will now copy the video file from the cache directory to your selected target directory.
5. A regular windows file name does not allow characters like "?" in the name. For that reason does Windows Explorer use only the part before the ? as the file name in the target directory. "get_video", then it usually adds "[2]" to it, but no file extension. Press F2 to rename the file and enter at the end of the new name .FLV as the file extension.

Click Image to enlarge!

Note for Microsoft Vista users: The “Temporary Internet Files” folder is not as easy accessible as under Windows XP, even if you have “Administrator” rights and the Windows Explorer option “Show hidden files and folders” enabled. If you know the user name that you were using to login to MS Vista, go to the Address Bar in Windows Explorer, right click on it and select “Edit Address”. Enter as address the following: "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files", where you must replace USERNAME, with the actual user name that you are logged into MS Vista with.

If you need a good video converter for Flash Video to something else, I recommend Moyea FLV to Video converter, which delivers the best conversion results that I have seen so far. You can try it for free, before you have to decide, if you are going to buy a license for it or not.

Another good converter, which is also a little bit more versatile than the Moyea one is the MP4 Converter by 4Media. The name MP4 Converter is a bit misleading, because the tool can handle a lot more than just videos in MP4 format. You can download the free trial version of the tool here.

That's it! Happy Video Downloading!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Summary of Tools Mentioned in this Post

Online Video Download Tools

• Vixy.net
• YouConvertIt.com       
• Javimoya.com      
• Zamzar.com       
• Media-Convert.com   
• XConv.com        
• KeepVid.com         

Windows Desktop Download Tools

• Free YouTube Downloader

Commercial Windows Stream Recorder/Capture Software

• Jaksta Stream Recorder
• Applian WM Recorder
• Replay Media Catcher

Flash Video Player

• God Like Mouse

Browser Plug-ins

• Grease Monkey Script for Mozilla Firefox
• Downloader Grease Monkey Scripts
• Real Player Download Plug-In for IE

Flash Video Converters for Windows

• Moyea FLV to Video Converter
• MP4Converter by 4Media

Star Trek, The Experience is Gone!

You heard correctly, Star Trek - The Experience is gone ... where no Star Trek Experience has gone before ...  into oblivion. I just returned from Las Vegas today. 

I was at the Hilton Las Vegas yesterday and shocked to see that the Star Trek Experience is now closed, not for maintenance, updates, NO ... FOREVER!!! It is actually closed already since September 1, 2008. WTF?

Okay, I did the Experience already four times (or five, I am not 100% sure). I did it the first time in 2002 (or was it 2001?),  when there was only the Klingon Encounter and then several times more, after they expanded the Experience with the Borg Invasion (4D) ride in early 2004 (I always liked the old Klingon ride much more, but then I also liked only the Original Series and Next Generation and never got into DS9, Voyager or Enterprise).

What a loss! ... and probably only because some greedy bastards could not agree on how to share the profits.

The Experience wasn't cheap (about $25 until 2004 and $40 or so, after they launched the second ride. Okay a bit less than that, one or a few bucks, but that does not matter anymore), plus the revenue from the gift shop and the overpriced "Quarks" restaurant that served TGI Friday's kind of food for twice the price and half the quality. Not being profitable could not have been the reason for shutting it down after over 11 years of operation.

It's a shame and Gene Roddenberry, who passed away in 1991, did obviously some poor decisions regarding who and how the franchise that he created, will be managed after his death. What a blow and slap into the face of Star Trek fans worldwide. Gene would turn in his grave (bless his soul), if he'd know about this.

Backup URL to Video on YouTube

I bought some Star Trek stuff at the gift shop myself. A plush bear (star fleet commander), a small Tribble (from Star Trek, the original series) and a shirt with a Star Fleet Academy logo on it. Here are some pictures of it. The Tribble makes actually a sound, if you press it hehe. I don't know where you could buy this stuff now, because the gift store at the Hilton is gone like the rides, restaurant, bar and museum. The online store and web site StarTrekExp.com is also down now :(

I am glad that I "forced" a friend of mine, an American who grew up in Chile and worked at my former employer with me, to go to Vegas and do the Experience, before he went back with his wife and kids to live in Chile. He was/is a huge Star Trek fan and even wanted to do this Star Trek wedding (but the wife was not so thrilled about that and said no). I knew that he would regret it for the rest of his life, if he had not done it, so I forced him to his luck. Now it's gone and he wouldn't have a chance to do it anymore. I am sure that he will appreciate my persistence a few years ago even more now.

That's a lesson for anything in life. If you really want to do something, don't leave it an open item on your "to-do list" for too long, because of stupid excuses, just do it, or you might never get the chance to do it at all.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Kooza DVD and Cirque C&D Letter

This is my first post, using the Windows Live Writer application. It's a free tool by Microsoft to make blog posts, supporting various blogging platforms beyond Windows Live Spaces. It was able to determine the blog layout and I can now see right when I type this, how it will probably look on the site. Another important feature, which made me giving Live Writer a shot, is the nice image upload feature via FTP. If all goes well, images that I insert here into the editor should be transferred over to my web server and the post in Blogger should refer to the images web URL instead of the local file on my hard-drive. Lets see how it works out :).

They have a dedicated web site, an open SDK  and a gallery with already 97 plug-ins available for download and use with the new Writer tool. I was able to configure the Writer for this blog (using classic Blogger with FTP to push to my servers), with SearchEngineJournal.com (WordPress), but not with ReveNews.com. I think that the problem with ReveNews.com has not to do with the Writer, but the configuration of the ReveNews.com blog itself, which is also using WordPress, like SEJ, where it worked instantly.

Post Reason No. 1

Okay, but this is not the reason for my post. There are actually two much more significant reasons. Lets start with the first, which is much simpler and explained in no time, compared with reason number two.

I got today my 2 discs DVD set of the recording of the Cirque du Soleil show "Kooza". I ordered it on the weekend and paid $12 or so for express shipping. The shipping was really express, which justifies the high shipping charge. The DVD itself cost $29.00. It seems to be expensive, but you actually get a lot of stuff for your bucks, so I'd say that the price is fair. You can only buy it via the Cirque Boutique online as far as I can tell.

I stumbled across the DVD by accident. I didn't see any promotion for it (including nothing on the Cirque web site itself) or anything like that. I noticed it when I compared the DVD offers in the Cirque Boutique for shoppers from the United States to the ones for shoppers from India. Why I did that will be explained in reason two a bit later. Well, that also means that I don't know when the DVD was actually released, because I didn't see any preview, announcement or advertisement for it. It cannot be for long be available though, because it is not available via Amazon.com yet. Assuming that the delay for appearing in Amazon.com is the same as it was for the Kooza soundtrack, then it must have been released sometimes last week.

What do you get for your money?

I mentioned already that you get a lot for your money. DVD 1 contains only the main show, which is about 2 hours in length. Audio is available in Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. The show was filmed with 8 cameras during its run in Toronto Canada. The second DVD contains the entire 47 minutes long documentary "A Thrilling Ride Through Kooza", which was/is sold separately for several months already. This documentary itself cost already $19.00!

Also included are an about 11 minutes long documentary about the Wheel of Death act, some promotional advertisements for other Cirque products and the DVD credits. Altogether over 3 hours of content in high definition and superb sound quality. Subtitles are also available in multiple languages, including Spanish and French. The DVDs come in a custom made box cover, which did not fit in its entirely on my scanner. But you will get the idea, I hope :).

Post Reason No. 2

Now it is getting serious, so hold on tight and bear with me please :).

If you noticed and wondered, why many of my past blog posts were changed and include this ugly button where there used to be videos embedded, I will now explain why that I did it and you will hopefully understand and forgive me.

I received a bit over one week ago a Cease and Desist letter by Cirque du Soleil. I am not kidding here, this is real, I swear. You can see the actual letterin PDF format here. See for yourself.

It was written politely. They obviously don't like that I promote their business and help them to make more revenue and more profits (I am still not kidding).  Before I responded to them, I did contact the Social Media Manager for Cirque du Soleil, Jessica Berlin, who is located in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had contact with Jessica in the past, first through my old YouTube.com account and then through my CirqueDuSoleilGuru account. Jessica manages the CirqueLasVegas account on YouTube and we bumped into each other, because she was literally spamming many of my Cirque du Soleil related videos (no joke). She knew what I was doing, appreciated it, and even gave comments and made suggestions.

So I forwarded the email from her colleagues to Jessica, assuming that there was an error made or some rookie at the Montreal office does not know anything about social media and what is going on the Internet these days.

My email to her looked like this quote (excerpt only):

Could you please explain to your colleagues what social media is and that they fight an up-hill battle, if they try to prevent people from taking their brand and run with it by force?

I do it publicly as a fan and do tons of advertising and more for free and honest, It's a promotion that you cannot buy for any money in the world. I answer questions of people and cannot remember getting any negative feedback ever. Since I am a fan and not a hater of the Cirque, I try to present the Cirque in its best light possible. I never claimed to work on behalf of the Cirque. I am also open to comments and suggestions, like the one you did for the "Believe" video, where you thought that I was not clear enough expressing that this is not an official Cirque du Soleil released video. If you try to force, regulate and control what people think and interpret by using threats and citing inadequate and outdated laws, two things will happen.

1. you lose support and might even turn your best friends into your worst foes
2. people will not stop doing what they do (the genie is out of the bottle), they will only close all communication channels and use the protection of anonymity, removing the option for you to guide and support and to maintain at least some control over the message that is send out to people.

What is the point in doing that? It does not make sense at all, personally and also from the business point of view.

I understand that there are some ethical limits what some other people do not. I don't publish full DVD or CD rips of Cirque du Soleil shows for example, although I still believe that this does not hurt you guys that much really, unless the CD/DVD business became bigger than show ticket sales. I stated at my blog and YouTube channel, that the best recording of a show, Multi-Angle, High Definition (HD), 5.1 Surround Sound etc. is no substitute for watching a show live. It's like watching a roller-coaster ride on TV... it gives you a glimpse, but you have to experience it yourself to get the full package.

You are allowed to forward this and also any previous email communication to other folks at Cirque du Soleil, including the two ladies below. I hereby give you officially the permission to do so.

I have 10 days to respond to the notice. I will wait with my response until Wednesday and hope to hear back from you before then. It gives you over two working days to discuss this subject with your colleagues internally and to make a decision.

I wrote in March an Article titled "Social Media Guide for Big Brand Businesses" for Search Engine Journal, which was well received. I suggest to you and your colleagues to read it.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media-guide-for-big-brand-corporate-businesses/6604/

I got a response from Jessica a few days later (I got the C&D letter on a Friday, just to mention it). She wrote:

Thank you for forwarding this.  I think this has come about primarily because of the DVD content that is hosted on your sites.  I understand your frustrations with this but Cirque has always upheld a very firm policy that no more than three minutes of content is able to be used without having to pay for rights to the footage.  Usually we have media (both traditional and 2.0) sign a release form for the use of any footage.  Social media is still relatively new territory for us but we still need to enforce our brand standards in all mediums.

I know you are a huge fan and we truly appreciate your help in promoting the shows.  In order to be able to continue working together, I hope you will respect the guidelines.

So I changed the posts on my blog and responded to the original email with the C&D letter attached to it, before the 10 days time-limit was up:

Sorry for the delayed response, but I was busy. Well, the set 10 days are not over yet, so I am still acting within the accepted limits.

There are no possibly infringing Cirque du Soleil videos hosted or embedded at RoySAC.com or any other web sites that I operate anymore, as you requested.

What remains is material provided by partners with whom I am affiliated with, including Amazon.com and MGM or meet the criteria of fair use within the acceptable limits of news reporting and/or expression of my personal opinion, which is still perfectly legal in this country.Let me know, if you have questions or refute my claims for the remaining content on my web sites.

I followed the demands made in the C&D by the letter, not a bit more and, I honestly believe, no less either.

This makes things look a little bit odd now, because the videos are still there and not removed from the planet earth of course. I did this on purpose, to make a point.

I would make a bet that the three minutes length limitation, specified by their internal policies, is based on the use for traditional media, including Television but also high definition ads on DVDs, including their own DVDs. Signing a release form applies also to traditional media (which includes large Web 2.0 publishers), but not to social media (video sharing).

The Cirque would have to hire a lot more staff and new servers (web and/or email servers), if they want every guy on the planet who decides to make a fan video from various sources sign a release form (which they must have available in at least a few hundred of the close to 7,000 living languages in the world today, because not everybody who has a computer and Internet access is necessarily also fluent in English or French.

The 3 minutes time limit probably has also to do with the standards in the TV and Movie industry. Ad blocks on TV are often sold with a  30 seconds length. A 1 minutes Ad would take up 2 blocks. Some even use 20 seconds blocks, which would require the purchase of 3 blocks for a 1 minute Ad. Movie trailers for the theatres, TV, online movie sites (e.g. IMDB.com) or to be included on other DVD movies are usually between 20 seconds to 2:30 minutes long, max 3 minutes (oh.. surprise!). Anyway, I can only say "Leave the old rules with the old habits and get used to new rules (and maybe also new habits)"

Asking a regular guy and fan to only make videos that are no longer than 3 minutes is not only ridicules, but also stupid and to some extend even discriminating. Jessica also seems to be new to all of this. Her well meant, but poorly exercised promotional campaign for the announcement video of the new Cirque show in Vegas starring the magician "Criss Angel" (the spam that I mentioned earlier), seems to confirm my personal assumption.

I can only recommend to read my original email once more. This should help with the missing understanding a little bit. I am also open to talks, since I seem to know a little bit more about this subject then they do. Hey, I don't even charge them money for it.

Now to the complained regarding the use of DVD content for some of my videos.

The Stuff is already there, not because of me!

First, ALL Cirque du Soleil DVDs are available for free download in pirated form all over the Internet. Pick your poison, Torrents, Usenet, FTP servers or sliced up into <10 minutes pieces on YouTube. Non of those were my doing. I got tons of requests to publish extensive DVD material, which I refused politely, referring to online stores where those DVDs can be purchased for personal use. This includes Cirque Documentaries.

One Exception, for Good Reasons

There was one exception. I made one of the documentaries available non-public to a fan in India, who cannot afford to travel to Las Vegas to see the show in Person, Due to the fact that it is a resident show, no show recording of the show is available or will be available any day soon (the show "Mystère" runs for over 15 years and there is still no recording of it). The documentary "Flow" (about the Cirque show "O") is only available through the Cirque Boutique online shop. Before you are able to show the store is it necessary to specify where the items will be shipped to. If you select USA, everything is fine and pretty much the entire product catalog is accessible. Different story, if you specify India as shipping location. The number of products available  shrinks significantly. The DVD section is almost empty. Non of the documentary DVDs is available for purchase.

So the there is no legal way for somebody from India to get access to this content. I assume that the restriction for India has nothing to do with the Cirque using copyright laws to control distribution in a bad way, but logistical issues and/or the risk of and fear for credit card fraud, which is rampart in Asia and requires some sophistication to reduce the risk to an acceptable limit.

I felt sorry and uploaded the video to Google Video and sent the non-public URL to this guy in a personal email. The videos do not appear in any listings or search results on any web site though. Here are screen shots of the site, one with the DVD offerings, if you specify United States as delivery destination and another, if you set the destination to India (btw. when I made those screen shots, is when I noticed the Kooza DVD and bought it right then and there hehe).

Show Content from Documentaries

Yes, I admit that I used show content from documentaries, including the ones that are available on DVD. However, I only did it for shows, where there is no recording on DVD available (yet). I did not publish the documentary parts though, which always made up the larger part of the documentaries.

If you are a fan and live half way around the globe from the venue where a resident show is being performed, chances could be slim to zero that the person would be able to ever make it to that show in person and in his or hers lifetime.

Know your Customers and Don't Use Cheap Methods to make a Quick and Dirty Buck!

If the person is interested in the shows but not the behind the scenes stuff, trying to sell to him a documentary DVD as a quick fix is not only low, but unethical as well. There are folks (like me), who value the background info of a show, about the creation, the artists and the surroundings. Fine, for them is the DVD and I didn't publish anything that would deter any of those potential customers from buying the documentary DVDs, on the contrary actually. I mentioned in some of the videos that it contains as source material images from a documentary DVD.

I was contacted who were unaware of the existence of such DVDs and who asked me specific questions about them. Often of the nature "which one to buy", because they only had enough money for one DVD and not all of them, so they wanted to pick the best they possibly could.

The folks interested in just the shows got a nice freebie in less than High Definition quality. They wouldn't buy the DVDs for the documentaries sake of them, are unable to buy a DVD recording of the show and sometimes unable to make it to a show in person.

However, some are able to make it and appreciate the video footage to help them with their decision about, for which of the soon to be SIX Cirque du Soleil shows (plus ONE additional Cirque like show, "Le Rêve" by former Cirque director Franco Dragonè, now on his own, plating at the Wynn Las Vegas), they should get tickets for when they are visiting Las Vegas.

Many of the viewers of the videos are actually folks who already got tickets are are excited about seeing a show live and folks who just saw one the shows and are still thrilled and excited to let everybody else know about their excitement via a comment a respective video of that show in YouTube. I am not kidding, check out the comments of the Cirque Videos on YouTube yourself, if you do not believe what I am telling you.

Summary, I do not cut into the Cirque's business, I am actually supporting and promoting it, helping them to sell more show tickets and to sell DVDs to the right customers for the right reasons. I even state at the user home page of my CirqueDuSoleilGuru account the following:

REMEMBER! A VIDEO (REGARDLESS OF ITS QUALITY) IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A LIVE EXPERIENCE OF THE PERFORMING CIRCUS ARTS!

I did not make that up, I really mean it! The Cirque should send me a check instead of a cease and desist letter! Others would probably agree with me on this one. I try to portrait the Cirque from his best side in my videos and try to be as true to the brand as I can. At the same time I am making as clear as possible that I created (edited) the video and do not work for the Cirque. This is important because of content that I use some times, where the Cirque does not own any copyright themselves, yes, content that includes live performances by the Cirque itself (I am not kidding again and won't start with it at the end :) ).

What I Do NOT Do!

I do not publish any video recordings where artists didn't do their act successfully and fell and might got injured beyond their own pride. I am sure that not everybody is a fan of the Cirque, competitors for example. They can produce stuff as well and appear in search results for "Cirque du Soleil" or any of their show names on search engines and other web sites, like YouTube. I am sure that the Cirque would prefer if that content would be about the Cirque and not the competitors offerings and certainly not content that makes the Cirque look bad, stupid, unprofessional or unable to do their job right.

Conclusion and Wrap Up

I will send the link to this post to the folks at Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, Canada and also to Jessica in Las Vegas and hope that they will retract their C&D letter and do what I already suggested in my first email (to Jessica only, now published also publicly here at my blog). I will be in Vegas in a few days and hope to get the chance to talk with Jessica of Cirque du Soleil in person. I hope that she will appreciate all my free tips and advice that I provided and starts getting a real grip on this whole social media thing, where she was made a marketing manager for. I won't give up on the Cirque that easily. And if their is "reasoning" then there will be a solution that will work for everybody involved and can be used by the marketing folks at the Cirque for other instances like this one, where the person on the other side does not happen to be a marketer with experience in the social media space and is also a blogger (a lucky coincidence for the Cirque, I'd like to believe).

I think this post makes the top 5 list of the longest posts written for this blog. I didn't check and will stop here to avoid to be able to be sure that this must be the longest post of them all hehe.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

p.s. One last thing. Did you notice the new buttons below the post to enter a comment? How do you like it? I think that it is more prominent than the old simple text links.

I have not found a way to add Blogger tags to a post yet, but there might be a plug-in. That is the only issue that I encountered with the Windows Live Writer so far. There is room for hope and happiness here :).