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YouTube Stands Up To IOC Over Free Tibet Video
Ian Lamont writes "The International Olympic Committee has withdrawn a DCMA takedown notice that targeted a two-minute long YouTube video of a Students for a Free Tibet protest at the Chinese consulate in New York. The video shows protesters gathering outside the building at night and projecting images of the Olympic symbol, 'tank man,' Tibetan riot footage and clips of victims of the Chinese police crackdown in Tibet. After receiving the request, YouTube contacted the IOC and asked if it really planned to pursue a claim. The IOC retracted the notice and the video was reposted within hours. Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society praised YouTube for 'going out of its way to do more than it's required to do under the law to protect free expression.'"
for the first person to post a link to the video so that I don't have to look for it myself!
Aside from using the logotype (which, in my opinion, was listed as 'fair use'), what exactly did the IOC plan to do with this? And why are they following China's commie propaganda?
Full Tilt
'going out of its way to do more than it's required to do under the law to protect free expression.' AKA 'going out of its way to do more than it's required to do under the law to protect their image.'
I'll take what I can get. You act like one of these choices is a bad thing!
And it's so terribly inconvenient that they deserve praise for it?
Lowered Expectations.
Personally I give Google kudos for doing this. If it were any other company they wouldn't have done anything and would have stated that they will not repost it unless a counter DMCA is issued. I applaud Google for taking the extra step of actually contacting the IOC and asking them if they truly want to pursue this or are they just trying to pander to the Chinese. The Chinese are horrible and sure they can make a pretty show but they have total disregard for human rights.
If this were Microsoft or Yahoo (and yahoo has pandered to the Chinese many many times) they would have waited for a counter DMCA or just ignore it and let another site deal with it.
So good job not being evil
*Cheers*
and I swear the Chinese's pretty little show doesn't change anything.
What's the difference? Surely it doesn't matter what the the actual reason internally in YouTube is, if the consequence is a strengthening of free speech?
That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
China's propaganda hasn't been about communism for a long time.
"Socialism with Chinese characteristics" is a wildcard because it can mean just about anything. Currently it is defined as socialist market economy.
So Google is not so much doing the right thing, but making the tough decision whether to go along with old, obnoxious powerful men who will soon be history, or to keep alongside its demographic.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
There's another explanation, which is that a lot of symbols surrounding the Olympics are trademarked. And, in the US, trademark law requires that you take steps to protect your trademark, or you risk losing some or all of your rights to it. It's debatable how much that has to do with this case, since at least one of the Olympic symbols (the interlocking rings) is protected by a special statute that falls outside normal rules for this sort of thing, but it could be a factor.
It's not that much of a dictatorship. The people get to vote on which CP member gets in. It's a bit like the US really, but with one less party.
Nope. If they selectively challenge DMCA notices (especially if they only challenge trivial ones), they're merely defining the boundaries of free expression, not protecting it.
ResidntGeek
It's a bit like the US really
Except in the US you can criticize the party in power without being arrested and hauled away by the cops.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
free the US?
You do realize we have an election in less than three months right?
After the last 8 years China and Russia aren't looking as bad as they used.
Are you sure about that?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The IOC have been excessively aggressive in protecting their trademarks for years. The 2004 games in Athens had them threatening every restaurant or other venue with the word 'Olympic' in its name - apparently they were unaware that Olympus is in Greece and things have been named after it for several thousand years there. In the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, there have been laws passed here in the UK granting extra protection to their trademarks.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Google shouldn't have removed the video in the first place. At least, that's what I refused to do when I received an obviously invalid DMCA request for one of my own customers site.
DMCA requests are being sent out like spam. And when I say spam, I mean that they're being sent out by automated scripts with no human supervision whatsoever. And in many documented cases, DMCA requests are being sent out by people who know damn well the DMCA doesn't apply -- but they just want to have some embarrassing materials taken down as quickly as possible.
So if a human looks at it, like a Google employee must have obviously done to tell the IOC about it, and says 'no', it's obviously an invalid DMCA request, then the video shouldn't be removed -- or if it was removed already -- it should be posted back right away -- before the IOC is even contacted.
Now I realize Google is being sued by copyright holders for not being quick enough to respond to them, but we need to sue Google on the other side of the issue to make sure they don't go too far in complying with the legal threats of these automated DMCA requests. If we don't do this, we'll certainly lose our rights to immediate free speech, and *immediate* free speech is important -- or at least it's gaining more importance every single day -- since sites like YouTube often beat out other traditional outlets in getting fresh same-day footage of armed conflicts, rigged elections, and bloody protests.
It may have 1/200 Chinese athletes, but it has 100% of Chinese commercial interests, and more importantly to the billions of magpies watching, it's shifting attention away from the great vices of the Chinese government, painting them as a happy friendly internationally-welcoming country.
There's a reason China is feared, they have a ton of American money, and they have the morals of Hitler, Stalin and Hussein all chopped up into one big bad cloak of violent oppression.
Unless you like the idea of being dragged off to jail for blogging... hey everybody's different, right ? :P
-Billco, Fnarg.com
People who live in glass countries shouldn't throw bricks. In the US you don't have to critize anybody to be arrested and hauled away by the cops [illinoistimes.com].
What's your point? Governmental officials abuse their power? Nobody would deny that. The difference between the US and China is that we have a free press that can investigate those abuses of power and bring them to light. In China they can't even get answers as to why their schools collapsed and killed thousands of their children during the recent earthquakes.
Remember that Democracy is the worst form of Government ever -- except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
We shouldn't blame them for threatening legal action based on a text tag without even viewing the supposedly offending video?
But text tags are subject to trademark law. Come to think of it, I applaud Google for standing up to someone who tried to use copyright law to enforce a trademark.
As to the free press issue, American reporters go to jail over politics, too [cnn.com]
No, American reporters go to jail for refusing to testify in front of a Grand Jury. Bit of a difference there. I would argue that we need a press shield law on the Federal level (my state has one) but there's still a difference between going to jail for contempt of court and being whisked away for investigating Governmental abuses or corruption.
the right to free speech is supposed to be the right to not speak as well
Actually, no, there is no right not to speak if you are subpoenaed to testify. You have a right against self-incrimination but if you are offered immunity (i.e: nothing you say can be used against you) then you don't have the right to refuse to testify. This is based on hundreds of years of legal precedent and tradition.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Bumper stickers are more about making yourself feel good than actually doing something to end Chinese oppression.
Why don't the folks who put bumper stickers on their cars and wear the cool t-shirts organize an expeditionary force like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade that traveled to Spain to fight Franco's fascists?
And if it ended up being a suicide mission it would certainly draw the attention of all the major news networks and the brave volunteers could go to their deaths knowing they sacrificed their lives for a greater good.
What?
Quite honestly, the IOC brand has been so diluted since 1936 by its association with nasty dictatorships, corruption and junk food that the inhabitants of Mt. Olympus should call and ask for their good name back.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
This is based on hundreds of years of legal precedent and tradition.
So is bullfighting. Doesn't make it right. We must assert our right to resist all authority. Because we DO have that right. "Contempt of court" is a very convenient way of locking up "undesirables", and is frequently used for the explicit purpose of whisking people away. Grand juries can be quite politically corrupt also. As is usually the case when dealing with reporters and the "war on drugs". They have no right to force me to do anything.
What?
Vimeo has stood up to the Church of Scientology and the IOC. Their commitment to free speech is absolute. They are far more worthy of our support than YouTube, which regularly knuckles under to media companies whispering "Boo!" in their ears. Vimeo will not allow you to upload your rips of Battlestar Galactica episodes but they will stand by your right to free speech. Plus videos look and sound WAY BETTER there.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Do you really think a witness to a murder (or any crime for that matter) should be able to refuse to testify?
Yes. I do not agree with drug laws, and if I were on a jury in a drug case (well, I wouldn't be because the prosecuting attorney wouldn't let it happen) I could not in good conscience vote "guilty", no matter what the evidence.
If I were called to testify against someone selling pot, I would be in a very bad place indeed; I would have a moral mandate to refuse to testify, but if I did refuse I would face incarceration myself. That just isn't right.
It's even worse with a murder trial. If forced to testify my choices would be a) refuse to testify, and be incarcerated myself, b) testify and be murdered myself, or c) join the "witless protection program" and lose my job, my friends, my family, my possessions, and everyone and everything I love. This despite the fact that I, myself, had done nothing wrong whatever.
If my child committed murder I would go to jail rather than testify. Oddly, you can be compelled to testify against your child or your parent but not your wife. This, too, is wrong. The fifth amendment gives the criminal the right to remain silent, the witness should have the same right.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
What I don't understand in this discussion is why the American on the street is so hot to criticise China, today. Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that China is fifty or a hundred years behind the US on human rights issues. For much of its history, the US has been fifty or a hundred years behind Britain in similar ways. But the US has been proud during that time of the rate at which it has advanced. To take one obvious example, the US is proud of having abolished slavery in (I think) 1865, despite that England ruled against it in 1772, even before the American revolution. Back in the present, China's current rate of progress on social and economic fronts is, I think unarguably, an order of magnitude greater than the US has ever accomplished. Why, then, are they the bad guys, when to all appearances they are doing the most good, in progress times population, perhaps of any nation ever existing on the planet?
Yes, to accomplish this, China is making a lot of what appear to be very, very calculated compromises. Taken in isolation, these compromises frequently appear ugly, cynical and sometimes (for instance on the environmental front) terrifyingly risky. But could you do better, starting from where they are starting? Could the US government do better? Nobody really believes any government when they say, 'in five years we will achieve this.' But look at your scorecard. Is the US truly keeping its promises better than China does?
The biggest high level criticism you can level at the Chinese government in recent history is that, OMG, they have abandoned the ideals of Communism. The US has been compromising on some of its political ideals lately, too. Tell me honestly: which direction of change do you prefer?
The point at which you, the parent, joined the discussion, was democracy and the free press. Take a step back and look at contemporary America. Are you certain that the last two elections represent the will of the people? Are you certain that what your news media are telling you about, let's say, the governments of the US and China are unbiased, unscripted, and intellectually and factually honest? I want to be very clear. I am emphatically not saying China is at this moment better than the US. But I am saying that they seem to be working on it, very hard indeed. The US, of late, is all talk. And a lot, a lot of America's recent 'progress' is frankly retrograde.
Unless I've missed something, the DMCA deals exclusively with copyright infringement. The linked rings symbol is trademarked by the IOC. There is no copyright in it, and certainly no copyright in the linked-handcuff symbol used in the Free Tibet video. Even granting that the IOC might have a case for trademark infringement, what entitles them to issue a DMCA takedown notice? Indeed, a DMCA takedown notice requires the issuer to attest under penalty of perjury that the issuer holds the copyright in the work in question. Did the IOC or its lawyer not commit perjury in issuing this notice?
It is all nice to claim that Youtube is standing up to freespeech but they are really only doing so in limited cases. Most glaringly Youtube is working with Turkey to make a new version of Youtube that is censored according to Turkish law. See http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=149182&bolum=105 Turkey cannot handle even minimal criticism of Ataturk and Youtube is giving them exactly what they want. I understand what Youtube is doing here. One can make the argument that exposure to the freespeech will eventually lead to less censorship. Also, Youtube obviously has its own financial incentives. But let's not pretend that Youtube and its parent Google are great champions of freespeech. They fight when they know they are very likely to win but don't otherwise.