YouTube Yanks Free Tibet Video After IOC Pressure

RevWaldo writes "The International Olympic Committee filed a copyright infringement claim yesterday against YouTube for hosting video of a Free Tibet protest at the Chinese Consulate in Manhattan Thursday night. The video depicts demonstrators conducting a candlelight vigil and projecting a protest video onto the consulate building; the projection features recent footage of Tibetan monks being arrested and riffs on the Olympic logo of the five interlocking rings, turning them into handcuffs. YouTube dutifully yanked the video, but it can still be seen on Vimeo. (Be advised; there is some brief footage of bloody, injured monks.)"

Comments

Re:I'll judge them in 3 days.

[whisper_jeff]

It won't be back up. If it does depict the five interlocking rings as the summary states then the IOC will aggressively attack it as infringing. The IOC does not let five interlocking rings fly, no matter the context. Ever. This will be no different. It has nothing to do with the Tibet/China angel - it's purely about the five interlocking rings. Had the video not had that imagery, I'm certain it'd be fine (from the IOC standpoint, at least).

Re:I'll judge them in 3 days.

[Eil]

It wouldn't surprise me if the legal situation at YouTube was that they yank any clip against which there is a properly filed copyright complaint, and that they follow up later on the actual applicability of copyright law.

I work for a web hosting company and thus have some exposure to this type of thing.

In a nutshell, you're entirely correct. Under the DMCA, providers are required by law to remove the "offending" material upon receipt of an infringement notice. If they don't, they become liable for infringement as well. No real proof of ownership is required, the author of the notice simply has to say it belongs to them. When we receive one of these, all we do is suspend the concerned account, forward the DMCA to the customer, and then our job is done.

The only thing that makes the DMCA bearable for us is the fact that we're off the hook if our customer decides to unsuspend the account and make the content available again after receiving the notice. From then on, it's a legal battle between the alleged copyright holder and the alleged infringer.

In this case (depending on how draconian YouTube/Google decides to feel today), the user can simply re-upload the video to YouTube and if the alleged copyright holder wants to battle it further, they have to use the legal system to get subpoenas, court orders, etc for further action. (But of course IANAL, so feel free to poke holes in my understanding of the DMCA here.)

Re:I'll judge them in 3 days.

[tambo]

The IOC does not let five interlocking rings fly, no matter the context. Ever.

They don't have that right. That's the point of parody.

Jerry Falwell certainly didn't want his image used by Hustler Magazine, but he didn't have the power to stop them.

- David Stein

Re:I'll judge them in 3 days.

[Wavicle]

The problem with getting "The Story" on pre-1950 Tibet is that most of the information comes from two groups: The Chinese who wish to paint it as a caste system where the Lama caste mercilously ruled over the population with an iron fist; and the Tibet government in exile who want to paint the Chinese as an oppressive government mercilously ruling over the population with an iron fist.

The closest thing I have found to an independent review is this skeptoid article.

And for laughs, and an opinion not tilted by propaganda from either side, but maybe a little biased, is this Penn & Teller B*llsh*t bit.

The responses to the above from the Free Tibet crowd tend to go something like "But *THIS* Dalai Lama was a good one! He would have ruled with justice and compassion." Well, okay, maybe he really would. But history has shown us pretty conclusively that absolute monarchies tend to have more wicked than wonderful rulers.