Oz teen copyright vigilante dupes YouTube

ABC clips pulled following letter from 'employee'

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Law, 16th April 2007 08:47 GMT

A 15-year-old Perth teenager persuaded YouTube to pull hundreds of clips by masquerading as an employee of state broadcasting outfit the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Reuters reports.

The lad wrote a letter to Google's amateur video tentacle saying he represented ABC and would it mind removing clips of "popular local comedy series" The Chaser's War on Everything. YouTube duly obliged.

Australian Associated Press reported on Saturday that ABC's lawyers had themselves contacted the young man, who duly apologised. ABC's head of TV comedy, Courtney Gibson, told ABC radio: "Everyone does dumb stuff when they are 15. We really appreciate that he's apologised and we'll be following up with him next week."

Gibson added: "But what was of concern to us was the fact that YouTube was sending copyright infringement notices to people who have been uploading Chaser clips to YouTube, threatening to shut down their access to YouTube if they persist. That's what was worrying to us." ®

Bootnote

Yes, we're confused too. We wonder how ABC will react when some ne'er-do-well uploads its programmes before they've even aired. ®

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