This week we stumbled across a Website and found one of our old videos! The website is in the tourism industry offering holidays exploring Britain and embedded one of our videos in their holiday package for North Cornwall. It was titled 'Video Tour' and suggests we are affiliated with the company, endorsing them.
The company had not approached us in anyway shape or form. They hadn't had the courtesy to seek permission to use our video, they just took a fancy to it and thought, because they were within the YouTube guidelines, they would 'take' it and embed it in their website.
So what is embedding?
When a video is embedded in a website, the thumbnail will appear with a big play button, just like it is on YouTube. See photo above.
So why is this upsetting to us?
Firstly, we certainly do not want you, as our subscribers to see our faces pop up as if we are endorsing a product, and subsequently buy thinking we have checked it out. We value your support and would only collaborate with companies that we feel are of good standing, are genuine and reliable.
Secondly, we do not want to be associated with any old thing! We think this flies in the face of your trust in us and why would we work so hard to build our channel so that someone else can make it appear as if we love what they are selling?
And thirdly, we work hard on our videos. They take a lot of our spare time to film, edit and promote. Why should someone else take advantage of our hard work for their own profit? We feel that is wrong. At least have the courtesy to ask if we would mind them using our videos, then we can check it out, see if it is something we would like to be associated with and a good, reliable product for you, our subscribers.
So what have we done about this?
The website has removed our video. Also, we have contacted YouTube Support and they have given us a step-by-step guide to preventing this from happening again. The bad news is that I will have to go into every video separately to change the settings, this may take me some time!
So if you see one of our videos embedded in a website then please BEWARE! If you are in any doubt whatsoever, please feel free to email us on cornishwalkingtrails@gmail.com. We will either reassure you or contact the company requesting they remove the video from their website.
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