PlanetCatfish.com

Viktor Jarikov wrote: ↑31 Dec 2020, 23:29 I wonder what might be the reason for taking down and keeping this or any such videos private? So Jeremy's presentation is not plagiarized?

Not so much that, but rather not to overexpose the speaker. We took it down after a while so that the speaker can remain viable with that talk.

Happy new year, Eric

Generally, the recording is why I've mostly stopped speaking. Folks were just live streaming or posting whole sections of the talk to youtube etc. Aside from the fact it makes the poster and not the club nor content creator money, it reduces demand for the speaker and (worst in my eyes) stops many from speaking at all. Most clubs don't have rules against it.

This is a case where it's been handled well and, because clubs getting meetings together has been challenging in the last several months, looks like the best way forward for now.

Looking forward to big events again as soon as possible and clubs taking a stance on bootleg recordings!

Jools

I have a couple of friends who speak at events. I have gone to a club meeting or a weekend event just to hear a friend's presentation. I also know that most such presentations are given multiple times at different events all over the country. I can say that once I have seen a presentation. I am not likely to want to see the "re-run."

Most clubs and events spend money to get speakers. At the very least they cover all the travel costs etc. for the speaker and in a number of cases they also pay the speaker for appearing. However, the people who actually make clubs and events possible are mostly donating their time and most such events rarely show a profit. When they do it is usually returned in some way to the community of fish keepers involved.

I know this is the digital age. But there is also the issue of good old fashioned respect. Respect for the speaker and respect for the sponsoring organization.

Finally, the experts who make the presentations don't just arrive, do the presentation and leave. They actually spend time with attendees in some great discussions. I learned a ton from folks like Jools, Barbie, Hans, Ingo, Stephan, Shane, Rachel and Eric at events to name just a few. If folks keep taping and posting their presentations, many of these people may decide it is not worth doing them any more. And that would be a real shame.

Don't mean to stir the pot but to further my understanding.

Thank you all for describing the scene for me. I was clueless. I thought since this was all for the hobby, awareness, and friend-to-friend, peer-to-peer, and master-to-newbie help and mutual growth and not for profit and fame, it didn't matter if people had access to anyone's presentation at any time on YT or otherwise and it'd be actually ideal if peers were free to learn from the presentations of the masters at any time because this is the goal of creating these presentations. You make me see it is not the only goal...

The more people can learn from your (free good will? charity?) work without you having to travel and spend time and money, the better it'd seem to naïve me. And they could spend this saved time and energy creating new presentations, etc., instead of keep repeating themselves to the audiences of 20-100 people at a time.

... I see things your way too, I do, I think. I don't know if I'd care that much about what happens to what I put out there in the public space, except plagiarism... perhaps once I reach the masterhood level and my knowledge-popularization works get abused, I'd start singing a different tune, more attune to yours.

My situation is yet a bit more complex as I intend to make a living from my hobby, so financial details will matter more.

Thank you guys so much. I love learning aspects such as these from you too.

Viktor Jarikov wrote: ↑01 Jan 2021, 20:33The more people can learn from your (free good will? charity?) work without you having to travel and spend time and money, the better it'd seem to naïve me. And they could spend this saved time and energy creating new presentations, etc., instead of keep repeating themselves to the audiences of 20-100 people at a time.

Free good will and charity are what I and others gain (and give) on websites like PlanetCatfish by benefiting from the experiences of the experts, including you Viktor (trust me, you've created a niche few people can imagine).

Unfortunately the example you describe is not really how fish clubs and speakers work. IMHO, the main attraction of the in-person speaker is the face-to-face time. A recorded old talk doesn't provide that. The expense of speaker travel/housing/food (when provided) is necessary to bring the speaker. Otherwise, the info is free for those in attendance (except for the few clubs which provide modest stipends-see below). Without the in-person experience, I bet clubs would struggle to get dues-paying members in the future. What would they be paying for?

Not many clubs provide honoraria to the speakers. Even clubs which do will not give the speaker enough $$ to fund future expeditions or experiences which would empower the speaker to create a new talk. (And no club will give the speaker the cost of travel/housing/food as payment for an online talk). So we have to start with the premise that most new talks are based on self-funded work. With clubs being unable or unwilling to finance new speaker projects, therefore, existing talks are a premium. Myself, I have 4 talks, all which I've given, some twice. I'm working on new projects to have more talks, but that will take time.

Viktor Jarikov wrote: ↑01 Jan 2021, 20:33... I see things your way too, I do, I think. I don't know if I'd care that much about what happens to what I put out there in the public space, except plagiarism... perhaps once I reach the masterhood level and my knowledge-popularization works get abused, I'd start singing a different tune, more attune to yours.

My situation is yet a bit more complex as I intend to make a living from my hobby, so financial details will matter more.

If you can make a living off the hobby, more power to you. I know few who (I think) do. In the meantime, Viktor, don't sell yourself short. You have a world of experience few others do.

Cheers, Eric

Jools wrote: ↑01 Jan 2021, 10:54

Looking forward to big events again as soon as possible and clubs taking a stance on bootleg recordings!

Jools

Maybe we should break this off to a "Confessions of a Fish Club Speaker" thread

The way most events work, especially in the U.S., is that clubs 1) Have agreement with the venue to fill X number of rooms to get a lowered "convention room rate" and cover the costs of renting the hotel's conference rooms for talks. 2) Attract enough attendees that it is worth it for high quality vendors to attend and sale their wares 3) (the most important) Attract as many people as possible for the big auction at the end. These big auctions are the number one single event revenue generator for the club.

So how do you pack hotels, attract vendors, and fill auctions? Bring in speakers that people want to see that are offering new, interesting information.

That is getting hard to do when video of your presentations are on the internet for free. Ultimately it is hurting the club's ability to attract crowds and make enough money to cover operating costs.

-Shane

Shane wrote: ↑02 Jan 2021, 12:50Ultimately it is hurting the club's ability to attract crowds and make enough money to cover operating costs.

Exactly my point above (not specifically about conventions, but for monthly meetings). Perhaps I was verbose.

Cheers, Eric

Shane wrote: ↑02 Jan 2021, 12:50 Maybe we should break this off to a "Confessions of a Fish Club Speaker" thread

Your wish is my command . . but I changed the title

I was watching live streaming Jeremy give presentation and loved his slides I have memory issues (car accident 4 years ago has wiped out my memory bank especially in this hobby and having hard time remembering things at times having to relearn things)

I was hoping as a completely deaf person that youtube was going to enable it to be better at the auto closed captioning it was not effective as it was only few words here and there. But slides made me happy. And people talking and joking that was awesome just sucks sometimes when I have memory problems and he was focusing on my favorite species. Sucks when someone like me have memory issue and we want to rewatch again and it's gone. That's my only complaint and completely understandable why it's taken down.

Cheers great job though

Jess

Proteus wrote: ↑03 Jan 2021, 20:31I was hoping as a completely deaf person that youtube was going to enable it to be better at the auto closed captioning it was not effective as it was only few words here and there.

Hi Jess,

Glad you enjoyed the talk, in spite of the obstacles. I'll talk to our YouTube guru, Michael Pohl, who manages the live presentations for our club, to see if we can create closed captioning. I don't know if it's possible, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Cheers, Eric

Hi

In the IG BSSW e.V. we have monthly meetings in several regional groups, mainly based in Germany. The club does not make any profit of these meetings, neither does the speaker. The latter is paid for his gasoline, beer, some food, his expenses basically. We usually start the meetings at around 7pm and end them at 10-11pm, that's when the location closes. Very often some of us go to a friends place from there, continue our discussions in a fish room or somewhere in a garden if it's summer. What I want to say: Money is not an issue during these meetings, it's much more the social part. I am the chairman of the IG BSSW and together with some members we discussed the potential of online meetings, and came to the conclusion that this is not how we would like to do it. Of roughly 500 registered members, none came up with the wish to have an online meeting.

As a speaker I don't want to give an online presentation either. What I want is the interaction with people during a talk: Discussing a species identification, maybe making some fun about each other, definitely myself, simply having a good time while delivering a great talk and spreading some knowledge which might be useful for some.

I have seen/heard some talks various times by now, but if you are doing so with the right people it's always fun to attend it another time. A few years ago I attended the WAC meeting (West African Cichlids), basically because a friend of mine was going and he was one of our clique, so we all went and had an extraordinary time. I have never seen so many Haplochromis spp., and I don't urgently need to anymore, but I would go there again. It's the talks that bring people together, but its the surrounding that is a big part of the event too.

Also it seems to me that online presentations are already decreasing, would you agree? In April/May every there were dozens of talks advertised on social media, but it is getting less in my opinion.

edit: I noticed I went a bit off topic, so whats the actual harm of posting the presentations? I wouldn't want my presentations to be online, I want people to see them live. Not because the content is mine and not supposed to be spread, but because the same presentation is a bit different every time it is given and in my opinion a good talk is always adjusted a bit to the audience which would not be the case anymore if its online. Thats why I usually don't finish the talk before I am up in the schedule. At OCA in 2017 my 2nd talk was scheduled for 10am, and I finished it a 9.30am, because I met some people at night who were going to attend and they were interested in something I did not cover in my talk. I thought nobody would care, so I added it and it was very well received.

Thank you guys. You have been great. Much new for me and much to chew on and mull. Makes me wonder if our points of view are the two extremes and some middle ground is best for the advance, popularization, and the enjoyment of sharing our hobby. Or maybe / rather this is already occurring anyway, the face-to-face and the online sharing, both in their ways, so no need to force or consider anything different.

I think you’re missing there are two things at play here. One is club sanctioned recordings, the other is unsanctioned. Of all the clubs mentioned on this thread, who has a policy for the latter?

Jools

Thinking on this a bit more it occurred to me that a speaker's presentation may fall into the same category in terms of copyright as a sporting event or a movie etc. The presentation is the creation and the property of the speaker. People who record it and then publish it online without permission may be legally libel.

If the sponsor of the event were to make an announcement at the start of each presentation that the material is the copyrighted property of the speaker and may not be reproduced without the express written consent of the speaker.

All it would take after that is one law suit and the word would be out, don't do it.

Any lawyers out there who can opine on this?

In my experience, most speakers I've talked to don't mind a few moments of a presentation being recorded and shared on social media, for example a person recording part of a talk to tell friends, "Hey, I'm listenting to speaker XYZ at the fish club meeting. Really neat stuff." But it's more problematic if large segments of a talk are posted online, then (as noted above) devaluing the speaker's content for future clubs.

What Daniel said about a live presentation being slightly different each time is absolutely right, but for many people, perhaps moreso those who are not socially connected to the speaker or... I don't know what... to them, if they've heard most of it before, they're not interested in just an update or new polish on the talk. That's not me, so I'm not promoting that attitude, but since I've been the program coordinator (speaker recruiter) for the Sacramento Aquarium Society for 4 years now, I've learned that can impact attendance, which impacts enthusiasm, which impacts membership, which impacts club vitality.

To TTA's question about legalities, yes, you may have something there, but perhaps only if the speaker includes some kind of copyright notification in their presentation (IDK - I'm guessing here). It certainly wouldn't hurt the club to remind attendees each meeting about respecting the speaker's work and not recording talks for posting, but I think there would be a fine line between that and an attendee who, for example, might be new to plecos and wants to remember everything the speaker says, so they record the talk for their own personal viewing. That in my opinion, is not the same.

Cheers, Eric