Video formats - free file formats please
Great video for Open Education Week. Glad to see such continual progress.
This is just a friendly reminder (to everyone) to provide at least one free file format version of your video clip so that users of free/libre software can view it too. This is a small request in relation to the time taken to make the video. Otherwise pro-freedom volunteers have to do it (we should all be pro-freedom as WE users) and there seem to be more and more clips being embedded without a link to a free format version.
In this case, the download link connects to an mpeg file (a non-free file format).
The line in the template for the download link reads
|Wikimedia Commons url=http://blip.tv/file/get/Mackiwg-OERFoundation598.mp4
(Wikimedia Commons does not accept .mp4 and provides instructions for converting to acceptable free file formats)
Finding the clip's description and its licence proved tricky. I could not find it with the search function on blip.tv - but managed via an external search engine with 'site:blip.tv OERu' in the search string which led me to videos under the Learning4content area.
For the Learning4content area as a whole and for this specific video I cannot see the licence and it is not made clear within the video. Maybe I am missing something (not looking in the right place) but I do see "© 2012 Blip Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved." at the foot of the page (which means their terms and copyright policy apply).
Without a cc-by or cc-by-sa (or PD) indication I don't feel free to help out by converting and uploading the result to Wikimedia Commons (or anywhere else suitable).
So, please make it as easy as you can by
- uploading a free file format in the first place
- indicating the licence clearly (preferably imo the pro-freedom licence cc-by-sa for WE)
- linking to a free file format version of your clip.
Thanks :-)
