The Times recently carried a piece reporting on the plethora of legal issues underlying a major sporting event such as the Olympics. Indeed, the piece might have been headlined “Beijing Bonanza for Lawyers”, so busy are m’learned friends in connection with the event.
A lawyer’s art was perhaps behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown request sent by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to YouTube in recent days over a Tibetan protest video. The request, reported here by Journalism.co.uk, initially met with compliance by YouTube. However, the video hosting site then thought better of its decision, and questioned whether the IOC was entitled to file a DMCA request. It also contested the notion of copyright infringement in the protest video.
The upshot is that the IOC has withdrawn its takedown request, and the video is now back on YouTube. You can see it below, but be warned – it contains some graphic and disturbing images.
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Several commentators, including Corynne McSherry at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have criticised the IOC’s action, saying, for example, that “It’s never OK to use improper copyright claims to take down legitimate, non-infringing content, but such takedowns are particularly galling when they are timed to directly interfere with the impact of a political message.” Others, among them Anthony Falzone of Stanford Law School, have praised YouTube’s conduct as an example of an information-sharing intermediary which “did the right thing” and acted to safeguard freedom of expression.
It strikes Blade that Falzone is right, but that the IOC’s actions might have backfired. By issuing an evidently spurious takedown request and then backtracking, the IOC has put its attitude to freedom of speech under the spotlight. This matter becomes one for debate and analysis. Doubtless, the greatest show on earth must go on, and so it will, just as we might reflect that sometimes it pays not to fire off that lawyer’s letter.
Image of Free Tibet protest in London above courtesy of Dantesinferno on Flickr.
