VideoNeat is a project that I started to gather all of the wonderful scientific video-materials that I can find and share them with people in a way that is very simple and efficient. I hoped that human beings, on this sphere we call Earth, will know more about the world we live in and that can have a ripple effect overall leading perhaps to a smarter society.
I know we live in a crazy world where people’s imagination is at high peeks and they think that ones and zeroes can be owned, so I did not hosted any video or photo material on this website specifically because of that. However I received today the following email:

Good Morning,

Pursuant to 17 USC 512(c)(3)(A), this communication serves as a statement that I am a duly authorized representative of The Teaching Company LLC, which is the exclusive rights holder for the video content being hosted at http://www.videoneat.com/lectures/, including but not limited to the titles A New History of Life, Black Holes Tides and Curved Spacetime: Understanding Gravity, Joy of Mathematics, The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries, Physics and Our Universe: How It All Works, Understanding the Science for Tomorrow, Introduction to Nanotechnology: The New Science of Small, Understanding the World’s Greatest Structures, The History of Scientific Medicine Revealed through Biography, Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It, My Favorite Universe, Great Thinkers, Great Theorems, Great Scientific Ideas That Changed the World, Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, Science: 20th Century, Science: 1700 to 1900, and Science: Antiquity to 1700.

These exclusive rights are being violated by material available upon your site at the following URL: http://www.videoneat.com/lectures/;

The use of this material in such a fashion is a direct violation of our terms of service and is not authorized by the copyright holder, the copyright holder’s agent, or the law.

Please confirm within 48 hours that you have removed this material and will cease from additional copyright violations, or we will pursue legal action, including but not limited to pursuing a shutdown via your hosting provider.

Thank you.

Regards,

Michelle Merritt

The Teaching Company, LLC

The Great Courses

4840 Westfields Blvd Ste 500

Chantilly, VA 20151

1-800-832-2412

merrittm@teachco.com

 

My reply:

Hello,
No video is hosted on VideoNeat.com. The links are from public places. Let me know if that is still infringing any copyright. I am sorry if that may have caused you any trouble. If indeed we infringe copyright by embedding videos that are from internet public places, then we will remove the material. Please let me know. Thank you!

Then:
Hello, If you are hosting these videos from public places (like YouTube), if possible, would you be able to send me the link to the website that is hosting the material? Since this is our intellectual property and you are not permitted to post them, we would appreciate you removing the material from your website, and I will pursue the website that is hosting these videos. Thank you for your cooperation in advance. Michelle Merritt The Great Courses Compliance Department

Me again:
Can you please let me know if and what law videoneat.com is breaking by embedding videos from public sources? I want to fix that first so there will be no issues in the future. I am not aware of such a law this is why I want to make it legal if it breaks any law that I am not aware of. Second, videoneat.com is a non-profit website and all the materials that we present are only for educational purposes.
I will immediately remove the materials if we are breaking the law by embedding them. I am all for cooperating for sure.
Thank you

Reply again:
Our courses are intellectual property and you are infringing the DMCA laws that strictly prohibit any reproduction. Here is your official Notice of Infringement statement:

Hello,

My name is Michelle Merritt. I work for the Teaching Company LLC The Great Courses. The below links have been posted on your website in infringement of our copyright:

http://www.videoneat.com/lectures/

Proof of Infringement: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/index.php

I would appreciate your assistance in removing these. Below is the DMCA statement

I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above on the allegedly infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

If you require any further information please feel free to contact me either by email or at the number below.

Thanks

 

That took 6 hours or so. I had 48h to decide, remember? Well then I’ve got an email from the hosting company saying that they took all of the website down until I remove those pages with ‘their’ lectures. Again, I hosted no lectures on VideoNeat. It is like if you see a video on youtube and embed it on your website, and the video (without you being aware of that) is ‘illegal’ then your website can be taken down it seems. Well that is great!

Right now it seems that I can put the website back if I remove all of those lectures. However since I don’t have access to the back end of the website anymore I don’t know how I am going to do that. I am waiting for the hosting company to reply. To be honest I am not surprised at all, and although probably videoneat.com will be up again without lectures, it can happen that the entire website will be taken down one day.

I can’t say much about this because it is what it is, that’s the world we live in….Don’t worry though, the internet is full of those lectures and even more than that, and I will make a page/list on videoneat for where to find the best lectures online. I will post more about this subject because there are some other interesting facts about this. I will post updates here as to how and when I will be able to get videoneat up again.

One thing to think about, this personal website hosts more copyrighted materials than videoneat did, because I do not own the photo thumbnails from the blog articles. Just a thought….

 

UPDATE 1

Site is up now. I had to remove the lectures though, but I will post an update on how I intend to replace this section of VideoNeat with better lectures. By the way if you were following any lecture on VideoNeat please send me a personal message it will be such a shame to not finish the course ;).

UPDATE 2

I didn’t have the time to add lectures from other sources, but I will as soon as I have some free time. Until then you can go and buy their courses for hundreds of dollars each, here. However please DO NOT use torrent like websites to download them because it is not a Christian thing to do!

 

UPDATE 3

I added lots of new lectures now, and they are not from the great expensive company ;). So, we are back 🙂 – http://videoneat.com/lectures/