Internet Watchdog Criticizes Viacom over YouTube Removals

Posted on February 21st, 2007 by DakotaMichaels.
Categories: Staff.

Internet advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is advising YouTube users who were wrongly accused by Viacom of uploading pirated material to fight the media company, even if that means going to court. 

The EFF says some of the 100,000 YouTube users recently targeted by Viacom as having uploaded pirated content were actually innocent, the New York Times reports. Viacom claims only 60 or 70 videos were mistakenly deemed copyright violations.

The EFF posted a video on YouTube last week, asking users who were unfairly targetted by Viacom to contact the organization. “It may make more sense to go to court to assert your rights,” EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann wrote on the organization’s site.

YouTube posted messages where the mistakenly pulled videos had appeared, saying the clips were pulled “at the request of copyright owner Viacom International because its content was used without permission.” Those messages were later changed to say the clips were pulled due to a copyright “claim” by Viacom.

0 comments.

Leave a comment

Comments can contain some xhtml. Names and emails are required (emails aren't displayed), url's are optional.