LOCH ARKAIG - THE WOODLAND TRUST - MARCH 2021

FYI, I have just posted the following to the comments on the Woodland Trust osprey page......

This is a message for those of you who post material clipped from the livestream.

We would like to request you include the following text when sharing clips on Youtube:

"Thanks to Woodland Trust from whose livestream I took this clip. Check out their live camera supported by players of People's Postcode Lottery at www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/ospreys";

Just to explain our reasoning. Woodland Trust owns copyright on all images from the livestream, but we are happy for people to clip and share. It adds to viewers' experience of the nest and enlivens these comments every day.

There are two issues that are a bit concerning though - the huge number of clips, and the understanding that viewers get of what they are looking at.

One of the benefits Woodland Trust receives from running the camera is an increase in traffic to our website, youtube and social media channels. In the last couple of years however, some of the material clipped by fans has itself been attracting massive numbers of page views. This has an impact on Youtube, the videos you are offered to view next etc. And it likely diverts viewers from our channels. We are not going to ask people to desist from posting but I would ask everyone to keep that in mind. We are fine for people to post season summaries etc and leave them up. But it would be good if there were not lots of little Youtube clips which build up over time and distract from our channels. Some of these could be taken down once they are no longer talking points. This is a request not a demand. I am not going to start policing what people are posting. We just want you to be aware of the issue.

Now turning to what viewers think they are looking at - there were occasions last year where people commented on fan clips where it was apparent they thought they were addressing Woodland Trust directly. We would prefer to avoid that sort of misunderstanding. So what we would like external clippers to do is make clear their post is taken from Woodland Trust's livestreaming nest camera, that they themselves are not Woodland Trust, and include a direct link back to our osprey page.

I know some of the regular clippers already post something of this sort. Thanks for that. It is much appreciated. It just seemed like a good idea to suggest a standardised approach we request everyone follows. The suggested wording above does that pretty succinctly. We would appreciate it if this wording with a link to the WT osprey page appeared *at the top *of text accompanying Youtube videos. If you already have your own wording and it addresses the situation by all means stick with it if you prefer.

The above suggested wording is specifically for Youtube video. When posting directly on Facebook you could use the same wording but a shorter credit would be fine too. "copyright Woodland Trust" will cover it. The same is fine for still images.

Just to be clear this is not about enforcing our copyright but hopefully generating more attention to our work and therefore support for our cause. We would like as many roads as possible to lead back here to this page.

We might move to enforce copyright if images were monetised in some way - if someone published a book for profit or if a Youtube channel was big enough to earn payments, but that is not what I am talking about here.

Apologies for the lengthy post. I just wanted everyone to understand the thinking behind the request.

Let me know if you have any questions or problems.