Bang on time to demonstrate why we need a service like UnionBook, comes a scary story on how video network YouTube has joined Facebook in the union-banning hall of shame. Canadian union PSAC were in dispute with Canada Post at the end of last year over sickness benefits, when some grassw00ts activists made a parody Christmas video, portraying Canada Post CEO Moya Green as Dr Seuss’ grizzly skinflint character the Grinch.
Unfortunately I can’t tell you how funny it was, as it’s been deleted. Canada Post were not entirely filled with the seasonal spirit, and quickly complained to YouTube that the video infringed copyright and should be removed. Like any web business with as many potential devastating legal liabilities as it has users, YouTube folded toot sweet and pulled the vid. This, even though Canada Post admitted the copyright they were strangely seeking to uphold was Dr Seuss’ rather than their own.
This case could have real implications in Canada, if the activists behind the parody were to complain and Canada Post were found to have abused copyright law. This is utterly asymetric though, and why employers and corporations have a big advantage in silencing activists. A legal threat carries a lot of weight with an online publisher, whose best defence against a possible future lawsuit is quick action on a complaint, and it costs a lot of time and money for the content authors to challenge – something most activists don’t have.
It’s also bad for web activism in that digital creative people will be less inclined to do more of this kind of campaigning if they’re more aware that there’s a good chance they could just be blocked out. I had a YouTube video deleted myself a couple of years ago, after parodying a Conservative Party political viral. The excuse was that my clip featured violence, but the violence was all from the original Tory ad, which unsurprisingly wasn’t removed. It was a faff to do (although, hand up, also a lot of fun), and its deletion after only a few hundred views made me think twice about whether that kind of activism was worth doing, given that anything else would be so easy to get deleted if it looked like it might prove effective.
Anyway – the homework from this piece is to come join UnionBook now – we won’t ban you, promise! (hat tip Derek for the story)
so post it on a load of other over video sites submit the story to digg reddit and slashdot. or send it out to the mbership and keep geting them to uload it to youtube 🙂
All good suggestions if you want to turn the banning into a campaign focus, but a distraction from the campaign the original video was meant to support.
mm so which one gets more PR? and companies that go infor this generate huge amounts of nagative press that might take a decade to die down.
spank a few and establish a precedent would be my view embrace your inner Calacanis 🙂