Tuesday, July 28, 2009

You Tube deletes my channel - WTF?

Dear Glen,
We are required by law to terminate accounts when they are found to repeatedly infringe copyright. Because you have had other videos rejected in the past, we are unable to reinstate your account.

Sincerely,
Jacob
The YouTube Team
Well the other videos i had rejected were short TV clips, that never even made it on YouTube. This current clip in question was a news report from Time Warner's NY1 news channel. But the irony is the news story was about the 1st phase of my "Liberty Street protest" - So I called the licencing dept. at NY1 spoke to some one there and they sincerely apologized and said they would write YouTube explaining the situation and if i left the video off they'd support me getting my account back.

Well no such luck. Not so bad for the clips I posted (other than Evan Bernards "Pound which got almost two million views since i posted it) because the best ones people have copied and posted or i have posted other places on the Internet, the really bad news is that I lost all the videos i marked as favorites and they won't even send me those URL's... Am i supposed to remember those? That's why i "favored" them! I think YouTube is amazing, but don't ever expect a fair shake from their legal department.

So even after NY1 wrote them, to tell them I was not such a bad offender;
We understand that the account... was closed down due to a copyright infringement complaint made by us. We’ve been in contact with the owner of the account, Glenn Friedman, and have settled the matter. We would like to help Glenn get his account re-opened ... Please let us know how we can assist Glenn.
Thank you,
Rxxxx Bxxxxxx
TWC Local News Division
Licensing & Clearances
Decent enough for them to write that. Then I get this back:
Dear Glen,
Based on the communication we have had with NY1, we will not be able to restore your account.
Sincerely,
Jacob
The YouTube Team
Damn...

3 comments:

  1. That's YouTube for you. I know people who have had their account shut down for posting copywritten material that they own and hold the copywrite to. They defer to the side of just closing the account.

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  2. wow, that was a mess. I posted that above comment. -sean

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  3. That's pretty hurt. Maybe you can still post on VIMBY, Vimeo, or Daily Motion. I know of a guy who posted clips of himself playing video games, in order to help others in beating said game. YouTube said it was copyright infringement and suspended his account back in April or so. Chances are he won't get it back.

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