Smartflix anyone?

[creativewriting]

I crawled out from under my rock and stumbled upon this website. It is a rental service for technical videos. You get the videos for a week and send them back. No purchase necessary! Everything from Blacksmithing to Knitting (not that there are any knitters here). Others may have already found this sight, but it was new to me and I thought I would share. There are some great videos on Polymer Clay, Metal Lathes, and anything else you can think of. The link will go straight to the polymer clay videos for those that are wanting to take the plunge. Enjoy!

 

[lazyguy]

Very cool site thanks.

 

[rjwolfe3]

Too expensive for my taste but good site anyway.

 

[Gin N' Tonic]

Something you might not know

You might not be aware of this but Smartflix does not pay royalties to the folks who worked hard to make those DVD's. Here is some reading material that some might find interesting.

http://www.penturners.org/forum/showthread.php?t=34554

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=540069

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=93027&page=2


I found this out by accident when I rented a DVD on the lathe by Swarfrat and found that quite a lot of folks rent or sell their DVD's for the same or less and swarfrat will deduct your rental price if you buy their dvd. I like to buy them for my collection because I tend to watch them over and over again and sometimes I watch them right there at the lathe so I can try the technique and rewind it over and over again until I get it right (sometimes I'm a little slow grasping a concept.)

 

[creativewriting]

Thanks for the info Gin.

 

[rjwolfe3]

If the company is not doing anything illegal I see nothing wrong with it. Heck we can borrow some of these same videos from the local library for free and not pay a penny. I also don't see anyone having a problem if the local Blockbuster carried the same instructional dvds. I just don't like the fee they charge, if it were more along the lines of Netflix I would join.

 

[Gin N' Tonic]

Heck we can borrow some of these same videos from the local library for free and not pay a penny.

Under title 17 section 108 of the copyright law Libraries and archives are allowed.

I am not an attorney, nor do I intend to portray that I know the finer points of law. All I'm pointing out is that some folks put a lot of time and effort into producing something only to have it rented out by a large company for profit.


Also, Just because Smartflix *SAYS* they are not doing anything illegal does not necessarily make it the truth. Didn't the guys from Enron say they did nothing illegal? (no offense intended to anyone connected to Enron, I was using it as a point of reference)



Some more interesting reading.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html