CBC FLV

June 13, 2008 8:49 PM

I want to download a (non-copyrighted) FLV film (called A Film For Schools) from the CBC Radio 3 site, so I can post it on YouTube. How do I download it?

The film is not copyrighted because it is made of public domain educational films (this is stated in the end credits). I really love the film and would like to make it more available, but the CBC Radio 3 website is badly designed and the video player stops to re-buffer every 30 seconds so I want to put it up on YouTube.

posted by pcameron to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Their website is all flash -- there's very little likelihood of you finding an easy way to take the video from it. But, I was able to dig up some contact info for Jason Asbell (warning, it will resize your browser window..sorry). Maybe he can help you out?
posted by General Malaise at 9:16 PM on June 13

You need Replay Media Catcher, which is awesome. And it does work on the CBC website and on this particular film, which I just tested. (RMC comes with a free FLV player but today I donwloaded this one and like it much better for the full-screen option. Yay.)
posted by whatzit at 10:16 PM on June 13

I would contact the CBC and ask them to put it on Youtube, for two reasons. First, I'm sure they would appreciate being notified of additional venues for this video. Secondly, compressing FLV twice is going to look terrible.
posted by Monochrome at 7:00 AM on June 14

You want this Firefox extension:

http://www.downloadhelper.net/

Load the page with the FLV on it, save to disk, open with VLC.
posted by thewalrus at 11:55 AM on June 14

what about emailing them and asking them to post it on their youtubes channel?
posted by rhinny at 11:22 PM on June 14

Don't assume that the finished film is in the public domain merely because the visual pieces that make it up are in the public domain.

It is a new work that is transformative of earlier work, but the new work itself is most likely copywritten. A work doesn't actually even require the notice of copyright, it is automatically copywritten by the Berne Convention.
posted by MythMaker at 6:20 PM on August 16