Spike in views - Content Agregators

[Michael Cawood - Director]

I noticed a spike in the number of views Devils was getting over the last week or so and I'd been trying to figure out where it was coming from. I just figured it out.

I was told you can't do much about content agregators and sites automatically reposting your film, so you might as well roll with it. There is a reasonably smart content agregator site that's picked up our film and it's providing links to numerous sites that now seem to host our film. It also links to our IMDB page, and a non-existent DVD sales page on Amazon, but naturally it doesn't link to our site. On the plus side one of the top video links is our official YouTube page, and I suspect most people choose that link as it's a known brand, and doesn't bombard them with advertising or regional limitations (yes, there are actually sites where the film is hosted that I can't even play as it says I'm in the wrong region!!!).

I'm not going to link to this site though, or any of the others as it's just machines crawling the net generating links and pages to capture traffic for advertising. They're not bringing any significant value to us as film makers, they don't ask our permission to download and re-upload our content, and they don't share any of their earnings with the film-makers.

So it's nice we're getting some more hits on our YouTube video, but disappointing to see it's also playing in numerous other places we never gave permission for... most of which do not link back to our site. It's sad but part of the world of online video!

[Philippe REY - Composer]

As you said it Mike "It's sad but part of the world of online video!"... It has nothing to do with art unfortunately...