Vimeo's new policy is..... Failure!

[Andrew Reid]

It always puzzles me why these people end up in such powerful positions.

Who did she know, what did they see in her, and so on.

Indeed, it puzzles me even more why a finance person is the CEO of a creative video sharing company.

Surely they do not need a leader in banking (who was turned down for bank jobs), rather, they need a leader in Online Video Sharing Platforms, and then under that leader a finance department.

It all seems backwards to me.

By the way I asked for my personal data from Vimeo a new weeks ago. They finally got round to giving it to me. A text file with just four columns in it...

Under the EU law, that is actually illegal not to give the user full access to all the data.

I.e. my original video files, personal message inbox, comments and more.

In the event I need to rebuild my online video portfolio at any moment given Vimeo's policy of deleting entire accounts for DMCA 3-strike reasons, am I supposed to take this piddly little text file and that satisfies the job?

It isn't even fit for purpose.

Their legal and compliance department just seem clueless. And all this is accountable to the person at the top.

[Dave Maze]

I really need to start downloading videos I don’t have backed up off of Vimeo and just get off the platform. It’s really sad to see because Vimeo in 2008-2012 was really a place that I loved for the filmmaking community. The staff pick I received really helped me in my career and i really attribute it to being one of the biggest shifts for me

[Andrew Reid]

Yeah, I have fond memories, but if the portfolio I've spent 10 years on isn't guaranteed safe, it leaves me little choice but to do something about it! I mean, an online video channel is so key to what we do... Always has been... If it were to disappear randomly one night in the blink of an eye because Vimeo's CEO doesn't have her eye on the ball, it'll be a disaster for me and for EOSHD, the blog.

Whatever I think of Vimeo in 2018 and what it has changed to become, it all comes down to that really.

I'd rather stay and enjoy the community there... Maybe from a safer distance, from now on.

I also really like that YouTube makes an effort to explain their DMCA stuff in a more friendly way and in plenty of detail. The first I knew of Vimeo's policy was a big warning message flashing up saying my account was an inch away from obliteration

[MattH]

The main thing that struck me about that video is that it was all about HER.    You would have thought a young CEO would be eager to promote their company.  But what did she say about Vimeo?  Barely anything.  Literally the only thing she said was "When I made the decision to go to Vimeo one of the main reasons is because I was attracted to the fact that in online video Vimeo was doing something different".   Your company is doing something different? Wow what a sales pitch!  And by the way, the way she casually says made the decision, as if she had offers to be CEO of 10 companies, and she though "hmm, ok I'll have that one".   Anyone under the age of 35 who is given the opportunity to be CEO of a company they didn't create  should be grovelling at the feet of the board of directors.  There shouldn't be any decision in it.  What she should have said is something like "I was amazed and truly grateful to be lucky enough to have been given this opportunity at this young age to take the helm of such a high profile company".

Obviously there is a large sense of entitlement from finance students at ivy-league colleges who assume (correctly in many cases) that they can (for some reason) just walk into high profile positions.  And this sense of confidence actually helps them.  I think the fact that she probably did well at that start up bank helped her get the position, but also I cant help but think they were trying to be trendy in having a CEO who ticks a lot of boxes in terms of 'diversity'.

It's a shame that they are about to fly down the pan for having such a suicidal policy.

Though maybe we can see some positive in this. They don't have some "un-savy stuffy 60 year old who is closed off from the world" as a CEO, and instead they have a "young vibrant go-getter who is mindful of the new internet landscape who can adapt quickly to new challenges and engage more with the customer base yada yada".   Given that, maybe you could try contacting her personally about your concerns.  If she really is worth her salt maybe she can actually do something to change course before the ship runs aground.

[webrunner5]

I think it is too late. They bought her in there to chop off some heads, and apparently she is damn good at it for the time being.

I think the bought her in there to be the scapegoat. And they can blame it on her youth. And then they will hire some middle of the road CEO and get it back on track after weeding out the bad apples in their mind.

[Nrubloc]

It is common to get a numbers, finance/investment banker(in this case) type of person, sometimes as just a semi-temporary role, at least for a transitional change of a company’s direction. Some people make a career out of it and just bounce around and do this to serve a given purpose or roll. I have seen it first hand. From my experience it doesn’t always end well for clients and customers and can cost a lot for a company with very little in return initially or never, but that is sometimes already built in to be that way, especially with some buyouts, mergers, restructuring, or when setting out to have a different appearance for implementing new revenue streams/growth/investment plans.

As for how this person got there, as CEO. I would imagine she is a very bright and likeable person, but sometimes it can be favorable and sometimes not. She has proven herself as an investment banker and that’s what Vimeo wanted for their plans. I have meet with technical engineers and occasionally afterwards, I’m also surprised when I also ask myself the same, “How did this person end up here, because they can barely change a light bulb.” I just had this similar discussion with someone recently, and concluded that sometimes you just want to deal with someone who can get the job done properly, and don't really care if they are a nice or good person necessarily. Interestingly enough she acts like a runner up who just won a participation or conciliatory award role, when she mentions her other investment banker friends who got better opportunities right out of university. Maybe she will keep the seat warm, as things unfold as these are just business decisions made all the time, which can be (but are often not), to the benefit of the customer.

This is really the norm now, as I also see this when dealing with various random people from many different industries. After meeting with some management decision makers, I do sometimes wonder how anything ever gets done in some organizations. Don’t forget, doing things just half-ass is still a real achievement for some it seems. Then there are always the few probably doing the equivalent of 3-4 peoples jobs just holding things together, while management tries to come up with new “target strategies” or is busy working on “appearance projects” ideas to re-invent the wheel, to justify their own job. How progressive and brave.

One of my friends was hired a few years ago to setup a new software system and to train others at a company to transition… 4 years on now, and the company still hasn’t managed to implement it even though it was created. What an inefficient waste of time and resources, but it served its purpose to appear they were “managing” and doing something at the time.

[OliKMIA]

7 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Indeed, it puzzles me even more why a finance person is the CEO of a creative video sharing company.
Under the EU law, that is actually illegal not to give the user full access to all the data.

According to many rumors she's here to re-structure Vimeo so her finance background makes sense. She has directors to tell her about the creative aspect. Then she must act. There are two options:

1. She is stupid and everybody at Vimeo is dumb, they don't see that the DMCA thing is becoming a big issue. Possible but unlikely. Even Newsshooter just published an article about it. Vimeo didn't want to make any comments on the article despite Nesshooter request (my email also got ignored).
2. Their video on demand thing didn't work, they fired the previous executives and they are probably preparing a new strategy and this next business model might move away from the "NYC community with love" BS. They don't care much about a few outraged bloggers and twitter posts, they have bigger fish to fry. Everybody is outrage nowadays anyway. If this is the case, they just keep radio silence and dodge the few tweets and blog posts until they announce/implement the new strategy.

As for the legal point, as always they know that 99.9999999% of the people won't do anything else beyond screaming on internet. Otherwise feel free to hire a layer with a 2,000 euros retainer upfront just to start the procedure and see how long you stay afloat fighting against their "clueless" legal department. I don't think they are clueless, just cynical.

 

 

 

[JurijTurnsek]

A business has to make frequent decisions in an efficient manner. Does Vimeo have the manpower to carefully analyze every video for possibility of fair use of copyright material? Can they be destroyed by a few lawsuits from the big record labels? Can they afford to take that risk?

YouTube probably has a huge legal team, but they will still preemptively mute your video and then if you think you have a case, you can sort the problem out with them. Not many try and even fewer succeed. That is efficient from a business point of view. And YT can fall back on the huge resources of their parent company, can Vimeo?

This just speeds up the gradual move to generic free beats etc. for anyone not wanting to deal with this and probably most content creators don't want to anyway.

[Aussie Ash]

Vimeo's court case has been bleeding them for nine years already,according to this link given by

"Olikmia" and  "It took YouTube nearly a decade, and well over $100M, to eventually settle its DMCA lawsuit."

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180406/12242839584/vimeo-copyright-infringement-case-still-going-nearly-decade-later-with-another-partial-win-vimeo.shtml

[Andrew Reid]

2 hours ago, Aussie Ash said:

Vimeo's court case has been bleeding them for nine years already,according to this link given by

"Olikmia" and  "It took YouTube nearly a decade, and well over $100M, to eventually settle its DMCA lawsuit."

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180406/12242839584/vimeo-copyright-infringement-case-still-going-nearly-decade-later-with-another-partial-win-vimeo.shtml

It's pretty well established that the record label wants streaming revenue. Why not just give it them?

YouTube is.

Unless the problem is that Vimeo simply cannot afford it. It's possible they cannot strike a deal with the recording industry like YouTube has for streaming revenue, because Vimeo don't run ads. Any streaming revenue would have to come from their subscription fees.

However I hardly think they are a tiny, small company. They have MANY subscribers, paying quite a bit. So sort it out, or lose them.

Indeed Vimeo are 134 on the Alexa rank. Yup. 134th largest site on earth.

Their parent company has revenue of over $3 billion per year (2016)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_(company)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimeo

And they cannot spare $100m or less to sort out critical legal issues and protect their users.

 

[Andrew Reid]

4 hours ago, JurijTurnsek said:

Can they be destroyed by a few lawsuits from the big record labels? Can they afford to take that risk?

The answer is no, they can't be destroyed like that at all. IAC has several billions of dollars in revenue and Vimeo is the 134th most popular site in the world, with millions of paying subscribers, established a good 14 years - which is a LONG time in terms of an internet business.

Quote

YouTube probably has a huge legal team, but they will still preemptively mute your video and then if you think you have a case, you can sort the problem out with them.

Vimeo should mute the video based on Content ID then investigate the Fair Use claim made by the user, or allow the user to provide a license.

Instead, they do nothing to protect the user from DMCA take-downs or lawsuits, and then simply terminate their filmmaking portfolio after 3 strikes.

Fair?

Quote

And YT can fall back on the huge resources of their parent company, can Vimeo?

Yes, IAC.

Quote

This just speeds up the gradual move to generic free beats etc. for anyone not wanting to deal with this and probably most content creators don't want to anyway.

Yes, you're right. The winner is elevator musak.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Tokio Storm, the video that made me buy a GH2. And got the video bug. 

[fuzzynormal]

12 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

I think it is too late. They bought her in there to chop off some heads, and apparently she is damn good at it for the time being.

I think the bought her in there to be the scapegoat.

Not a bad take, tbh.  Corporate conspiracy notions are fun.  Break it all down to rebuild it, eh?

[webrunner5]

57 minutes ago, fuzzynormal said:

Not a bad take, tbh.  Corporate conspiracy notions are fun.  Break it all down to rebuild it, eh?

I worked for General Electric for a time. I was a Test Cell Engineer at the Jet engine factory in Cincinnati, Ohio. I got laid off along with a TON of others. It went from 22,000 people to 5,500 people in 2 1/2 years. I was in Salary, so no seniority. And all we did for about 2 years of it during the layoffs was have more damn meetings. I bet I spent 3 to 4 hours a day, no shit in meetings. And guess what None of it really helped. They had planned it Way ahead of time from Corporate to cut everyone. There was no saving it.

They moved most of it down south to South Carolina to a new factory that was non union. And about a 1/3 of it went to France to a joint venture called Safran Aircraft Engines, previously Snecma. So that was the end of that shit. That was over 20 years ago. Now even the South Carolina plant is nearly shut down. Most of it is ALL overseas now. Europe and the Far East. Not in China that I know of.

Long story short, they have had this Vimeo thingy planned for years and it is set in stone by now. This woman is the Sacrificial Lamb for them. But she will make 15 to 25 million a year and when they fire her she will get a Golden Parachute worth 30, 40 million. Hell I would do that LoL. I would do it for 10 cents on the dollar!

[fuzzynormal]

23 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

I worked for General Electric for a time. I was a Test Cell Engineer at the Jet engine factory in Cincinnati, Ohio. I got laid off along with a TON of others. It went from 22,000 people to 5,500 people in 2 1/2 years. I was in Salary, so no seniority. And all we did for about 2 years of it during the layoffs was have more damn meetings. I bet I spent 3 to 4 hours a day, no shit in meetings. And guess what None of it really helped. They had planned it Way ahead of time from Corporate to cut everyone. There was no saving it.

You make a good argument against "late-stage-capitalism."  Preaching to the choir here.  When you decimate the working class, there's not going to be enough to prop up the wealthy class.  Wealthy can't help it though, they want/need money now over long term interests.  To me, it's also touches on the whole supply-side notion of things, which as an economic theory is insane to me.

[Andrew Reid]

A CEO says "failing often can be empowering" because they are never the ones to get the brunt of the consequences and can always continue their career somewhere else high-paid.

I think it's almost like a spoilt child who doesn't care what toys they break as they immediately get a replacement!

She's shafting us who rely on Vimeo for work, and at the same time is immune herself to the controversy. Living in some kind of bubble. It's the highest form of entitlement and late stage capitalism.

[fuzzynormal]

I'm hopeful that some sort of internet economy will rise up wherein services, like a video streaming platform, are decidedly privately owned and willing to cater to niche markets.  Markets such as small time film makers looking to have an avenue to stream and do sales.

A service company that exists wholly for actually doing a good service for eager clients would be great...not some sort of "long-tail" financial commitment to business oriented shareholders.

Something more akin to a company that does, say, a craft brewery as a passion business --rather than a corporation that dominates the beer market because they are incredibly large and are always chasing that 2% annual growth.

Give me a small company that's looking to make a decent living doing their thing, but also absolutely content on being modest so they can offer a quality product.  Can that sort of industry somehow happen in this world?  

[OliKMIA]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

A CEO says "failing often can be empowering" because they are never the ones to get the brunt of the consequences and can always continue their career somewhere else high-paid.

She's shafting us who rely on Vimeo for work, and at the same time is immune herself to the controversy. Living in some kind of bubble. It's the highest form of entitlement and late stage capitalism.

Why so much hate against her? I don't know her personal story and her direct role in the DMCA policy (which btw was active long before she became CEO ).

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

It's pretty well established that the record label wants streaming revenue. Why not just give it them?

YouTube is.

Unless the problem is that Vimeo simply cannot afford it. It's possible they cannot strike a deal with the recording industry like YouTube has for streaming revenue, because Vimeo don't run ads. Any streaming revenue would have to come from their subscription fees.

However I hardly think they are a tiny, small company. They have MANY subscribers, paying quite a bit. So sort it out, or lose them.

Indeed Vimeo are 134 on the Alexa rank. Yup. 134th largest site on earth.

Their parent company has revenue of over $3 billion per year (2016)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_(company)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimeo

And they cannot spare $100m or less to sort out critical legal issues and protect their users.

 

According to your wiki link "IAC is an American holding company, that owns over 150 brands across 100 countries, mostly in media and Internet"
So this is a big conglomerate that buys companies to generates profit. Based on reuters, Vimeo is aiming at $100m revenue this years. I don't see any conglomerate willing spend a year of revenue ($100m) to fight for lawsuits. This is probably ten years if not more of Vimeo's operating income based on a 10% return.
It's all about basic business math. IAC didn't become a fat cat just by blowing money out of the windows. They are big, we can despise them but they have a business rationale whether we like it or not. Being 134th on Alexa is nice but it's not bulletproof. Online business rise and fall very quickly.

So on a personal standpoint, I agree with you, this is outrageous and I just got my first BS strike a few weeks ago. I'm trying to fight back but I have zero response from Vimeo.

On a business standpoint, it may make sense. Vimeo is a midget in the online word, their business model doesn't seems super solid (I don't have any profitability figure though), they failed the VOD move and its parent company is not going to burn cash because they are "big". It doesn't make any sense. So they are either dumb not seeing the incoming disaster or they are working on a new business model and strategy.
Beyond that I will not venture any further as I have zero information and facts about what is really going on at Vimeo internally.

[webrunner5]

Yeah but when you figure You Tube is basically free, and Vimeo charges pretty much everyone, and they still aren't making it happen tells me that it is, and was, some real dumb ass people steering the ship as the say. I think they are like Sears, WAY to late to turn it around. And now they are just pissing off the people that they Really need to stay on.

[ND64]

1 hour ago, OliKMIA said:

Why so much hate against her? I don't know her personal story and her direct role in the DMCA policy (which btw was active long before she became CEO ).

Its not hate. Its a natural reaction to absurdity of CEO's cluelessness about the company in her hand.