How do people feel on this?
Not the video - which I love - but some random dude uploading other peoples videos?
I only ask as he reuploaded something I made a couple of weeks back and (without checking), I am fairly sure it already is up on my own account.
So, for two reasons I found it odd.
Seems like SB is a bit of a glory seeker, in that sense.
Interested in peoples thoughts on it, for sure.
I’m all for it really. Generally, he uploads videos which weren’t online previously or only partly online/in bad quality. Nobody else is really doing that for British videos.
Doesn’t mean he gets it right all the time though. I remember someone (Magee I think) criticising him for not giving proper credit to videos’ original creators or not checking with filmers before uploading, and it sounds like he hasn’t really changed in that regard. I think that is lame if he is taking potential views away from an original upload by the person who made something.
But most of these videos are really old and have just been sat undigitised for years. I think it’s great you can now watch them again. But there is a really small audience for this - only a few hundred views for each upload on average.
My one criticism would be the upload quality. The accounts doing similar for US videos have worked out how to digitise VHS videos into 1080p digital videos. Would love to see Swift Blazer do the same for British videos.
There’s an account called Upscaling Bots on YouTube and they seem to upload in decent quality, and also stuff that’s not always easy to find.
I don’t have an issue with people uploading content they didn’t make. It’s not like half these videos are still for sale anyway, no one’s making any money off them (with a few exceptions), and it’d be so easy for videos to just get lost to the sands of time otherwise.
The caveat though, is giving credit. Which is probably more important for indy/scene videos .
I met SB once, he seemed pretty timid, and perhaps not that worldly, so wouldn’t hope for much in terms of doing the right thing.
I don’t know him well but seems like a pretty good guy to me. Have you tried giving him a shout and see what he says Londonskater?
Yeah, I’m more just interested in all your views over giving him a shout as I’m not sweating an 18 year old video.
I’ve spoken with him a bit; never really on the heavy stuff like takedowns.
The only thing I’ve really gone in on him for was that he uploaded most of a full part on the day of release for something fairly big (for me) which really sucked and showed a lack of understanding.
That bummed me out a lot and the skater, too.
He ignores DMs from people, which is where I think others have had issues.
At the very least, he follows me so my DMs don’t go to junk and I seem to get responses.
I do think that his uploads to YouTube and scans on his insta can be very lazy.
If he is doing it, then he needs to go all in as you can easily get to the original DVD quality on YouTube these days with some workaround. Same is said for his awful scans sometimes.
I am 100% glad that some of this old stuff gets light shone on it. I just wish he’d talk to the original creators rather than assume he has the right to do whatever he likes. Sometimes, there is more to it than I think he realises and that can work against us all.
A good point is that I was offered a bit of cash to dig into some old clips from the early 2000s for a brand. Purely by chance, SB started ripping the video I was meant to be pulling stuff from. The brand went quiet on the idea of me going back to the original tapes for attempts, etc. and just reposted whatever he stuck up on Insta for a week or two. That wasn’t cool.
As much as I think it’s lame for people to upload a video they have no connection to, I think I’m as frustrated by how some/most brands haven’t made their back catalogue of videos readily available online. (Although I get that music which was just plucked for a video made 20ish or plus years ago makes it a different ballgame in putting that same video online today.) It’s good to see that Crailtap and Alien Workshop have made a more concentrated effort with their archives.
I’m digressing but to go back to your point, if a video already exists online – especially by the person who made it, like you in this instance – I agree that I don’t see why someone else should share that online. But as someone already mentioned here, that Upscaling Bolts YouTube account is rad for making older videos accessible in great quality, most of which aren’t online officially too.
Something I noticed recently is that ‘Skate Loop’ Instagram account, which also has a website, did a series of articles and posts based around Real’s ‘Three Seasons’ video which very much looked advertorial content. I thought that presented a weird scenario if so because that person’s whole platform is built from re-posting the footage/work of other people, and now they’re possibly being approached by a brand and receiving monetary gain.
Guess this semi-recent tweet from Matt Price (of Louie Lopez trash can Closer cover and Golden Hour fame) is relevant here. (Disclaimer: I massively disagree with point about critics.)
Mostly Skateboarding also talked about filmer/footage rights with Shane Auckland a few weeks back too which also links in with this discussion.
Big up Swift Blazer uploading UK videos lost in the ether for no reason other than because he’s a fan and because it needs to happen for cultural reasons.
This is not directed at you @Londonskater but in my opinion anyone getting publicly proprietorial about videos from over a decade ago are making the selves look like knobheads.
It’s the Internet, there are no rules.
Hack the planet!
I agree that old skate videos are public content now and you can’t put that genie back in the bottle, but I think it’s fair enough to claim ownership and kick up a fuss if you want to be credited or want people to see a better quality version.
On reflection…maybe not worth kicking up a fuss at individuals who just love reposting stuff. It’s just a hobby and it helps get archive copies of old footage online.
I love what Beagle does with his archive clips from his big productions. He’s a great example of how you can keep control of the story without getting heavy on people reposting the public video footage.
The small-time nature of the skate industry is a factor here too. Things would be VERY different if there was money involved. If the revenue lost through these nostalgia accounts reposting stuff was enough to pay for lawyers and takedown orders shit would get real very quickly.
Hmm…I disagree with this in large parts.
Big up crew for continually driving the culture. Big up SvL. Big up Chromeball. Big up Memory Screen.
Big up all of those people. It’s amazing.
Here is where SB doesn’t fit: He wanders into the same world as Vegan x Bones too often.
There is a fine line for me in what I see as driving the culture forward, building on it as a fan and doing it for the love compared to just kinda ripping and reposting for internet glory.
Internet glory is what Vegan x Bones did wholly. This is what SB slips into here and there.
Vegan x Bones was a total offender. He seems to have stopped posting, but when he was active he’d take content, rip it and just repost to his account. It was stuff available online already and sometimes it was stuff small brands were currently trying to sell. There was no grace period. He’d just go for it.
SB isn’t as blatant - and he largely now does just post content you can’t buy anymore, after he got his fingers burnt a few times. But that video I am talking about is already available in exactly the same quality on the same platform on two other YouTube accounts.
I just don’t get what is he bringing to the table which isn’t out there already.
Insta posts are fair game…but posting the whole video to his own account in exactly the same quality as it was posted 11 years ago? How is that any different to Vegan x Bones?
If he’d have done it with solid data rates, I’d have been hyped as it was something new.
I’m definitely not pissy about any ownership. I’m happy for him to share the video. It’s cool.
However, if he’d have hit me up, I would have dropboxed him the original export and all of the edit folders so he could make some original shit, or post some unseen stuff. I’m sure lots of people who make video would do the same.
Whether the internet has rules or not doesn’t matter - I care about the culture.
Quite simply, if it was for the culture, he’d be bringing something new to the table and expanding on what we already have.
…and I just don’t think he is.
Tl;dr
Lol.
Only joking (even though I didn’t read it).
In the pub.
Will possibly respond tomorrow…
The Memory Screen dude gets commissioned to make remixes utilising footage he has no direct involvement with. I would have thought being paid for that is more questionable than someone like Swift Blazer uploading old videos for the sake of it, and where the “return” basically amounts to Insta followers?
That’s true - but MS didn’t always get paid for it.
And he still creates new pieces outside of those paid pieces.
And regardless of payment, he brings something new to the table which didn’t exist before.
That’s my entire angle with SB.
That MS Ray Barbee clip was epic, for example. It deserves to be out there as not only did it renew a lot of well worn clips, but it also shone a light on harder to find stuff as well.
His videos work in the same way your recent stuff does. It tells old tales - for the culture - in previously unseen ways.
If that is something either of you can monetise, then thats great. More power to you.
Does Monolo’s Tapes’ remixes predate Memory Screen doing it?
Shining light on harder to find stuff is of value – that’s where Chrome Ball began after all – but in video form mostly stuff still exists, as you mentioned to begin with, and is usually somewhat published officially? In the case of Ray Barbee, Powell are one of the few brands that have done a good job digitising their back catalogue. (Although fair enough if some of that stuff in his mixtape is from elsewhere.)
Obviously I’m not in a very objective position to comment but I don’t see the crossover with some of my work. I understand Memory Screen curating someone’s “greatest hits” in a near-biographical fashion as a story. But what I do (that I think your referring to) involves going direct to the source and the use of the footage is either provided by, or okay’d, by the filmer(s).
Which seems to be seen as the “acceptable” way of going about it, based on the recent talk in this thread?
Glad people are discussing this, it’s a subject I find interesting.
I definitely agree that going to the source is always a good call.
It is the best way to refresh something old.
I also understand that sometimes that isn’t possible.
If I am correct (happy to be proved wrong) but that Barbee video was a Vans push and in conjunction with the skater. So, there is similarity with your work - but I appreciate your point in that not all of his work is okay’ed.
In his defence, I think Memory Screen works in a world where that is largely impossible to clear everything because a skater tends to be shot by so many different filmers over the years.
That said, I do think my point still stands in that that Memory Screen brings something to the culture where others maybe haven’t.
…And I do think he is very similar to Chromeball in the shining of light. By which I mean that it wasn’t about remixing low hanging fruit like the Powell classic Barbee clips.
MS digs into so much more and that knowledge of culture is his real strength. It is shown in how deep he ends up going in.
Check this source list for that Barbee video as an example:
Digging through 30 years of completey random videos (Elwood?!? I never even knew there was one!) shows that he has the dedication to do it proper.
And when Manolo started dropping shit it was amazing, who’d have thought to do what he was doing?!? Editing out the soundtrack with completely new skate ‘noises’. Absolutely brilliant.
In that instance, wouldn’t being “in conjunction” with the skater be making them aware someone is making a mixtape of them?
Whereas for me it’s a case of: pitch the story, write it, interview the subject(s), transcribe it, edit the audio and video, correspond with filmers throughout the whole thing… It’s a different process to repackaging footage gathered through YouTube downloads/DVD rips, regardless of how “deep cut” that footage might be.
Conscious of how this may come across and want to make clear I’m not suggested that what I get to do is in any way “better” than people making remixes, just because it’s done with permission and involves the person/people at hand, I just think they’re different products.
Anyways, by product of this conversation but back to the thread, good time to rewind this one of Gino.
