Academic

YOUTUBE PULLS ?WE CON THE WORLD? VIDEO, but it?s rehosted elsewhere. YouTube?s reputation, on the o?

By Glenn Reynolds

YOUTUBE PULLS “WE CON THE WORLD” VIDEO, but it’s rehosted elsewhere. YouTube’s reputation, on the other hand, takes another hit. Perhaps the perception is inaccurate, but people on the right are beginning to feel that YouTube can’t be trusted. If I were YouTube, I’d be trying to address that somehow.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll blames Warner.

Warner Brothers of course, are the second half of the business entity Time-Warner, which also owns as part of its conglomeration of businesses CNN. In 2009, CNN tried to claim a copyright violation over the video shot by an individual of the Tea Partiers grilling then CNN ?reporter? Susan Roesgen, until the guys at Founding Bloggers fought for their clip to be restored at YouTube.

And that?s what a lot of this is all about: by claiming copyright violations real or imagined, Warners and other entities can get clips pulled from the Internet?s largest host of videos for several weeks or months. These videos frequently wind up on smaller sites of course (such as the aforementioned Eyeblast), and those who initiate claims against them often lose their battles, if the video makers are prepared to fight back. But by then, much of the news value of these sorts of clips has dissipated.

So that?s at least three conservative clips pulled by Time-Warner-related entities. As a certain A. Goldfinger once said, ?Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ?Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it?s enemy action.?

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Related: PayPal cutting off Pam Geller?

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on June 12, 2010 (boomark / email).