15-Year-Old Scams YouTube

SurturZ writes "A fifteen year old from Perth, Australia, posed as an employee of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, demanding that YouTube remove hundreds of video clips of 'The Chasers War on Everything.' The amusing part is that The Chaser is a comedy company well known to perpetrate exactly this sort of prank."

Comments

Re:They do?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You mean they lie about whether they're authorised to act on behalf of copyright holders _under penalty of perjury_?"

And why would an Australian minor care about penalty of perjury of a US court?

Or have you missed the part where this points out the silliness of DMCA requests from international interests?

Re:They do? Yes -- it's public broadcasting

[dbIII]

Strangely enough, the Howard government dismisses it for exactly that reason, and prefers to use the commercial media to get their spin out.

That's simply because the commercial television media here doesn't have much as of a budget for news and tends to take everything in the press releases on trust.

Good Response..

[qbproger]

The head of the comedy department didn't fly off the handle saying we're suing the kid. The police didn't show up at his door to take them away in hand cuffs. There response was "Everyone does dumb stuff when they're 15." What happened to that attitude in America?

"Scams"? Shouldn't that be "pranks"?

[Venerable Vegetable]

To say he scammed them seems a bit harsh. He didn't do this for any personal gain, which is implied when you call it a scam. It was silly and he shouldn't have done it, but it wasn't as serious as a scam. No harm done, except maybe a little time lost and some advertisment money. On the other hand, Youtube has learned a lesson.