Blip.tv is dedicated to pioneering the next generation of video programming — both narrowcast and broadcast — as producers and audiences educate and entertain each other according to the rigorous compliance standards that we have developed in conjunction with our users.

Piracy

While the ubiquitous distribution, limitless inventory and near-costless duplication of media afforded by the Internet allows producers and viewers of videos to interact in new and exciting ways, blip.tv's employees and users believe that rules of property apply to the Internet as well as they do to traditional media.

Unauthorized distribution of someone else's content is theft. High-tech theft is just as wrong — both legally and morally — as low-tech theft. We police our site just like retailers police their stores: we don't tolerate theft. Our users work hard to give voice to their creativity in video, and we won't let anyone rob them of that effort. Likewise, we won't tolerate robbers showing their merchandise on our site any more than Macy's would allow robbers to sell stolen goods in their stores.

All of this said, we are huge fans of "copyleft" licenses such as those offered by Creative Commons. We encourage everyone to look into Creative Commons licenses and adopt them. Every video released under a copyleft license enriches the (lowercase) creative commons in a significant way.

Pornography

We will not traffic in pornography. Blip is a venue where people can exchange ideas, viewpoints and entertainment. We want everyone to feel comfortable coming to our site — and we want everyone to feel comfortable allowing their children to come to our site. Many of our users have told us explicitly that they want their work to be showcased in a venue they can be proud of, and we are entirely dedicated to making blip such a venue.

Community

We believe that content creators and consumers are stakeholders in blip just as much as our employees, founders and shareholders. Blip was designed — and is continually designed — with the goal of being of service to these communities. We make every effort to develop tools, technologies and environments that the community can take pride in and find useful.

We are absolutely dedicated to maintaining an excellent relationship with the community and its individual members, whether or not those members are blip users. We make every effort to participate in community forums such as the videoblogging group and to be helpful in every way possible to members of these communities.

Every aspect of blip.tv is designed and improved based on direct interaction with the videoblogging community. The videoblogging community regularly reviews every feature and aspect of blip.tv, and we make changes based on community feedback. We see software development as a collaborative effort between our company and the community we serve.

Democratization

We are living in an age that historians will say was characterized by the democratization of expression. Whereas the means of media production and dissemination were once concentrated in a few hands, they are now ubiquitous: everybody can be an entertainer, an educator or a pundit. The traditional constraints imposed by high costs of production and limited distribution are no more: now that anyone with a camera and a computer can produce video content, the only constraint is that imposed by the limits of human creativity. Blip's users have shown that no such limit exists.

We believe that this liberation of the means of production is one of the most important things to happen in recent history. It allows anyone to create the next great sitcom, to share the reality of daily life across cultural boundaries, to share political thoughts and educational materials. This is a beautiful thing, and we are dedicated to furthering this democratization in a manner that always respects intellectual property rights in a venue where everyone can feel comfortable.

Openness

Ours is a new economy of plenty. It's no longer in anyone's best interests to put shackles on media, to tie media down to a specific Web site or to be tight-fisted with metadata. We believe that it is in the interests of the community and in the interests of blip.tv to be open with media and data about media.

We are not building a walled garden — we are actively working to break down walls in order to enable the free and open sharing of media and media metadata throughout the Web.

Sustainability

We believe that the best way to achieve our goals and principles is by ensuring that blip is a thriving enterprise. We are building a sustainable business by always respecting the law, honoring the community we are a part of and staying true to our principles.

Blip makes money in three ways: through advertising, professional accounts and the licensing of software and services to third parties. Our advertising program is purely voluntary. We will not place advertisements on videos unless the creator of the video has given us permission to do so. In such cases blip splits the advertising revenue with the creator of the video.

By software licensing, we help to manifest our Democratization principle. While blip.tv is our primary (and beloved) means of allowing video expression to be aired, we are happy to enable others to allow it as well. Through our software, video creators find means of expression through other sites — including those run by news, entertainment and other similar companies.