Do you guys think UkuleleVids.com is shady?

Brad Bordessa

Brad Bordessa

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I ran across UkuleleVids.com today via Top 50 'Ukulele Sites where it is rising quickly through the ranks. After some browsing I had serious questions and was wondering if I could get some opinions from the UU crew.

From what I saw, UkuleleVids is lifting content straight from YT (all of the content - like comments, channel info, etc - along with the videos) and rerouting it through some sort of different video player. I know that YT videos are pretty much public domain, but UkuleleVids makes it look like we have been submitting these videos straight to the site.

I say "we" because lots of UUer and major 'ukulele YT channel videos are on there: DominatorUke, hooserhiver, easyukulele, hawaiimusicsupply, ukulelebartt, and many more!

This is what my "UkuleleVids" channel looks like: http://www.ukulelevids.com/profile/liveukulele. You can't click over to the original videos and otherwise there is no credit whatsoever.

I never gave permission for this guy to use my videos and would at least like a link back to my site and a little thing that says something like "Brad has no affiliation with UkuleleVids".

And the "top rated" page is just the top YT videos - no relation to 'ukulele at all. http://www.ukulelevids.com/feed/top_rated.html It looks to me like somebody just set a computer loose with a special script and is not putting any additional value on the web.

Do I have my panties in a bunch or does this look shady to you guys too?
 
i think its shady. they are implying you are a member and or advocate of their site. report em
 
Yeah. It seems like a plan to get rich off of other people's effort. I'd hate to just get the site shut down if there IS good intention behind it, but on the other hand I think that ship has already sailed. Hmm...
 
ukecantdothat said:
I was under the impression that Ukulele Mike set up this site, based on the home page. Does anybody know who is behind this?
Click to expand...

No idea. It's pretty vauge in the "about" department. 'Ukulele Mike seems to be the main guy, but I doubt it's his site just based on the way things are.
 
Based on the home page, my impression was that it's a doorway page - in short, the goal would be to get people who Google uke-related stuff to land on the Ukulele Vids page before being redirected to YT. If that's the case, it won't last long - Google will not be happy and will stop indexing the site.
 
It gets my videos out through one more place - I have not seen anything bad about it, actually, and am flattered my videos are included. If people posted my videos on Facebook and their blogs I would not mind, and unless I am missing them doing something like connecting my me or my videos with something unsavory, I see nothing wrong with it. I think it is just like a special interest site dedicated to uke videos and if youa re derriving money off your videos, this site is helping you by getting you more views! It's not like the site is selling our work on a compilation CD or something like that. It's more exposure, and, while I know nothing about how this thing is set up or what the motive may be, I am all for getting my videos played more often - which is obvious by the shameless self-promotion I do on UU. Mike
 
janeray1940 said:
Based on the home page, my impression was that it's a doorway page - in short, the goal would be to get people who Google uke-related stuff to land on the Ukulele Vids page before being redirected to YT. If that's the case, it won't last long - Google will not be happy and will stop indexing the site.
Click to expand...

Not sure I know anything about this, but YT still gets the view for their work, don't they? And they still count in our views, right? I guess I just don't know much about these things. Interesting thread. Mike
 
lambchop said:
Not sure I know anything about this, but YT still gets the view for their work, don't they? And they still count in our views, right? I guess I just don't know much about these things. Interesting thread. Mike
Click to expand...

It is interesting - I'm not quite sure how that works. I get that regardless of how a viewer gets there, any views of your videos could be considered a good thing. However, if the site successfully managed to bypass the direct link to your YT video in a Google search - in other words, if the searcher landed on Ukulele Vids and then clicked through to you, rather than found you directly via Google - and managed to capitalize on that, Google would be pissed. I don't think it would impact you negatively even so, since you're not the one operating the Ukulele Vids site.

The force behind the site in question is a product called Prismotube, the sole purpose of which is to drive traffic to a website. Exactly how this translates to making money, I'm not clear on - but it's an outgrowth of link farming which is not a well-regarded practice by Google.

Caveat: I'm not an internet law attorney, but I've worked on enough websites to get the sense that someone is not going to be happy about this. I hope I'm proved wrong!
 
lambchop said:
Not sure I know anything about this, but YT still gets the view for their work, don't they? And they still count in our views, right? I guess I just don't know much about these things. Interesting thread. Mike
Click to expand...

I wouldn't count on it. To me it looks like they've pulled the videos away from YT. This is in their code and appears to pull the file to their own player:

Code: 
<script type="text/javascript">
		var so = new SWFObject("http://www.ukulelevids.com/player/player.swf","mpl","625","400","9");
		so.addParam("allowscriptaccess","always");
		so.addParam("allowfullscreen","true");
		so.addParam("wmode","transparent");
		so.addParam("flashvars","&file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukulelevids.com%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DuWHZc-xo9aI%26fmt%3D&image=&skin=http://www.ukulelevids.com/player/skins/&backcolor=010101&frontcolor=FDF2F3&lightcolor=FDF2F3&screencolor=000000&icons=false&controlbar=over&autostart=true&repeat=list&stretching=fill");
		so.write("mediaspace");
	</script>

Maybe someone who knows Javascript better than me could shed some light. But if it's not the YT player I wouldn't think you get view counts.

And also, the only outbound links I see are to Dominator's site and Easyukulele.com. It would be a bum rap for those two good sites to be associated with something like this.
 
Hippie Guy said:
I wouldn't count on it. To me it looks like they've pulled the videos away from YT. This is in their code and appears to pull the file to their own player:

Code: 
<script type="text/javascript">
		var so = new SWFObject("http://www.ukulelevids.com/player/player.swf","mpl","625","400","9");
		so.addParam("allowscriptaccess","always");
		so.addParam("allowfullscreen","true");
		so.addParam("wmode","transparent");
		so.addParam("flashvars","&file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukulelevids.com%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DuWHZc-xo9aI%26fmt%3D&image=&skin=http://www.ukulelevids.com/player/skins/&backcolor=010101&frontcolor=FDF2F3&lightcolor=FDF2F3&screencolor=000000&icons=false&controlbar=over&autostart=true&repeat=list&stretching=fill");
		so.write("mediaspace");
	</script>

Maybe someone who knows Javascript better than me could shed some light. But if it's not the YT player I wouldn't think you get view counts.
Click to expand...

I'm a bit rusty with Javascript but it looks like they throw on their own player (the pause/play/tracking etc controls) and their own skin, but the file is still hosted and played off Youtube, so they're possibly getting around any embedding restrictions. Would one of the people affected please try disabling embedding on one of your videos and then checking if that same vid is still playable on ukulelevids?

Here's the WHOIS results showing who registered the domain:

Code: 
Registrant:
   Elibin Gentingon
   Lot D48, Taman T&G Fasa 3, Jalan Lotong
   Kota Marudu, Sabah 89107
   Malaysia

   Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
   Domain Name: UKULELEVIDS.COM
      Created on: 20-Jan-10
      Expires on: 20-Jan-11
      Last Updated on: 24-Aug-10

   Administrative Contact:
      Gentingon, Elibin  tupusku@yahoo.com
      Lot D48, Taman T&G Fasa 3, Jalan Lotong
      Kota Marudu, Sabah 89107
      Malaysia
      +60.60198808406      Fax -- 

   Technical Contact:
      Gentingon, Elibin  tupusku@yahoo.com
      Lot D48, Taman T&G Fasa 3, Jalan Lotong
      Kota Marudu, Sabah 89107
      Malaysia
      +60.60198808406      Fax -- 

   Domain servers in listed order:
      NS1.UKULELEVIDS.COM
      NS2.UKULELEVIDS.COM

Googling that name doesn't show promising results, especially with one result stating that said name and email address is on several other domain registrations, and he's tied up with reselhost.com, who have stats like:

support@namecheap.com is a contact on the whois record of 1,412,604 domains
 
Last edited:
Yeah, just looks like they're appropriating content from elsewhere and just slapping a bunch of ads alongside to make money.

I'm there too: http://www.ukulelevids.com/profile/UkuleleJJ/

Totally shady, but I don't guess there's much you can do as long as you're allowing embedding.

JJ
 
I do see the concern, but thats the way youtube works - outside the uke world there are a million sites that syndicate ukulele content -

I runner a blogger blog, and that even offers me a widget I could include that will stream videos randomly by keyword - If I put a keyword of ukulele in, it may well show your videos too.

When you put a youtube video up, you have the option to stop embedding, but if you dont you are effectively giving licence for your content to be streamed by whoever -

Youtube get the credit, and your vid gets the hit count. If you click on one of the vids on this site, it will open up in Youtube too (I think)

But yes, it is a bit shady. Then I would say that, it overtook me like a rocket on the Top50 uke sites listing!!
 
pauljmuk said:
Youtube get the credit, and your vid gets the hit count. If you click on one of the vids on this site, it will open up in Youtube too (I think)
Click to expand...

Nope, they don't click over to YT. I don't know if they track views or not, but I'm thinking no.

It's not that the videos are getting embeded (if you could call it that). The problem (for me) is that they've pulled all of my channel info from YT (except for a link to my site - how convientent) and have got an UkuleleVids page for me. It looks like I'm affiliated and I don't want to have anything to do with an operation like this.

EDIT: Wow! Top 50 Sites has had a huge overall jump in hits over time. I remember when the top site was getting 5000 hits. Now there are 10 sites with over 3000 hits. More people are googling 'ukulele.
 
Last edited:
Hippie Guy - thanks - if they are not linking back to YT, then thats bad - somebody should alert YouTube, as I'm sure thats not how it should work (that said, I would have thought YT had this sort of thing covered)
 
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