Are Your Competitors Hijacking Your Videos Using Watermarking Software?

Hey there warriors,

Respected warrior Andrew Hansen not long ago, posted on his blog about the "new lows" that are going on in the Internet marketing space and how certain practices are giving IM an even worse name than it already has...hurting honest marketers who work hard to offer real value to the community.

Well, in my humble opinion this is another "new low" to report on. Imagine this - you work hard putting a really good video together. You work hard and pay money to promote this video and build up your YouTube channel. But you don't have your website URL anywhere on the video - you don't have it watermarked.

Then, a competitor in your niche comes along and notices your video and all of the traffic and views it is getting and decides to "use" it to siphon away traffic to their site. This competitor has a software that can place a watermark on your video - basically stamp a website URL of their choosing on it and re-uploads it to their YouTube channel so that it looks like it is a video that they produced! And do you think this person is asking your permission to do this? Of course not!

Well, this software does exist and it is being marketed by one of the new kids on the block who is trying to build a big business and name in the IM space.

OK - now of course alot of people uploading YouTube videos aren't marketers - they are doing it for entertainment, to teach or provide a "how to"...what have you. Any maybe these people wouldn't care if they were used in this way...but to do this with their videos, without permission?

Maybe I'm out to lunch - but how could doing something like this be legal? I'm no legal expert (please if you are - chime in your two cents)...but is this practice not only unethical but also illegal?

Think about it - how would you like it if someone "stole" your video and plastered their URL all over your face?

Just a heads up to anyone making videos - be sure to watermark your videos - put your URL on there - it's a best practice anyway but not something to overlook as there are people out there using this software who think nothing of piggybacking off your hard work to get traffic to their own sites.

Elise