The Ten Commandments of using eyewitness video
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The Ten Commandments of using eyewitness video

Djampa/Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved

UGC can add to your journalism and bottom line, but only if it is used properly and ethically

User-generated content, or eyewitness content, as we prefer to call it at Storyful, is a great resource for news organizations. It can add to your journalism and storytelling, and trending videos can generate significant monetized views — but only if properly verified and rights-cleared.

Over the years we have been working with our news and web partners to help surface eyewitness video, we have developed a series of rules that we use as a guide for how to handle UGC ethically and responsibly.

1. Thou shalt not steal

It may be tempting for newsrooms to ‘fair use’ user-generated video during breaking or developing stories. Fair use is a great legal concept and can be used carefully when it serves the public good and there is no other option, but hiding behind fair use is not acceptable if it is just to skip the hard work of verification and getting the correct permission to access a video.

Furthermore, using UGC without verification or proper permission can be very risky, and can potentially lead to lawsuits, costing your news organization a lot of money. We’ll see how this one plays out:

Why risk using video without permission? Even if a newsroom doesn’t have the time or resources to do this clearance themselves, Storyful and other agencies are available to provide verified and rights-cleared content.

2. Thou shalt not covet

Even if you do have permission to use a user-generated video, don’t claim rights to it that you don’t have. For instance, posting user-generated video to your YouTube account is fine if you have permission, but don’t claim ownership of it and issue Content ID claims against the original. Learn how to use YouTube Content ID (YouTube’s built-in system for claiming rights to video) and don’t abuse it.

This happened with a dramatic video posted by Daniel Van Duren in Tianjin recently when a Japanese news organization issued a claim against the video and we had to help him dispute the claim and get his video back on YouTube:

3. Thou shalt not use scrapes (unauthorized copies)

Sometimes it might be tempting to use the version of a video that is trending online and not bother tracking down the original and getting permission. Not only is this risky, it also means you miss out on getting access to the people who are closest to the story, the people who actually filmed the events themselves.

Daniel Van Duren filmed amazing video of the tragedy in Tianjin, but also had an amazing story to tell himself. ABC News got in touch with him and let him tell his story:

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4. Thou shalt not make assumptions

The first version of the dramatic hippo charge video, below, to trend online was a Facebook video. The person who posted it told a great story about how he filmed it, and gladly gave permission to news organizations to use the video, but that whole story was concocted. It was not his video and he had no right to grant permission.

Tracking down the original owner means you get permission from the right person and get to hear their story.

It also means that the revenue generated by the video can go to the rightful owner, and not just the revenue from views online, but also revenue from licenses and potential use by brands, such as the manufacturer of the phone used to film the video, or a brand wanting to make a viral ad.

That is a full and ethical circle of value for the owner, for publishers, and for brands, which means everyone wins. That’s a lot better than a one-off use of a scrape (unauthorized copy) that is not original or rights-cleared.

5. Thou shalt not bear false witness

It is cheating (and also bad journalism) to allow people to upload a video to your website, claim that it is theirs, and then sell or distribute the video without verifying that they have the rights to it. We see this happening all the time, and some news agencies hide behind the forms they have uploaders fill out by saying the legal burden is on the uploader, and that they don’t have to verify or ascertain the rights to videos themselves.

Something like this also happens in real time, with news organizations asking for permission to use videos from social accounts that clearly do not own the video they have uploaded.

6. Thou shalt not be fooled

UGC that is too good to be true probably is. Don’t get sucked in by a story or piece of video you find online without first verifying it. You won’t just look like a fool — over time you will harm your news brand and your own reputation.

7. Thou shalt not take advantage

Two Turkish tourists who filmed dramatic video of the earthquake in Nepal in April 2015 were interviewed briefly by a Turkish news organization when they arrived home. During that interview the agency took a copy of the video from their phone.

The agency then distributed and sold that video “exclusively” all over the world, but they never had the couple’s permission to do that. This happens in some parts of the world every day: users find out that their video is being sold and distributed by agencies who simply asked them if they could “use” a copy.

We were eventually able to help those tourists out by posting their video for them, but not before it had been used all over the world via a Turkish news agency, without their permission.

8. Thou shalt not use old video

Almost every time a story breaks, old videos and images appear online purporting to show the event.

Don’t get fooled by these, even if someone locally tells you they are real and gives you permission to use them. Old videos of avalanches on Everest keep appearing every time there is a new avalanche. We spend a lot of time debunking old images online during breaking news. “New” pictures or videos often turn out to be old, as was the case with the Everest image below:

9. Thou shalt give proper credit

If you use UGC, you should always credit it properly and, where possible, link to the original. Credit and a fair share of revenue should go to the original owner. It is not OK to post a copy of UGC online or on TV and credit it only to “YouTube” or “Facebook”. Give a proper courtesy and give a revenue share or link back to the owner whenever possible.

Screenshot of an international broadcaster using a ‘From YouTube’ credit, the digital equivalent of crediting ‘Telephone’

10. Thou shalt not give up

The team at Storyful can spend hours, or even days, working to forensically verify user-generated video. Verification is journalism and it is not easy. Don’t take the easy path by breaking any of the previous nine commandments because, if you do, you are taking the shortcut out of journalism and into a Wild West where ownership, rights and the truth are no longer important.

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