So what we only suspected is now official. In a response to The National, the BBC have confirmed that they were behind the termination of this site’s YouTube channel.
We have to admit, that “irrespective of the political views” line is a classic.
All joking aside though, we must confess to a modicum of shock. Despite everything, we still at least partly thought there was a chance that it was down to some malicious impersonator, but the state broadcaster has now publicly acknowledged that it demanded the removal of some short clips of news and current-affairs programmes, published in full accordance with the fair-use exemptions of copyright law, and all of which identified the sources of the clips used.
When YouTube have stopped making quite such a gigantic pig’s breakfast of all the technical aspects of the termination, we will of course be filing formal counter-notices for all the allegedly offending items. YouTube’s normal procedure in such cases is to reinstate the videos, having provided the complainant with the necessary details to bring a court case should they decide to do so.
So either our channel will be back online soon, or YouTube will be making a special exception to its own rules in order to suppress a political voice at the behest of a supposedly impartial media behemoth, or the BBC will be taking a website to court for reporting the news.
Either way, this could be about to get very interesting.
.
[EDIT 9.18pm: We just received a response from YouTube to our latest counter-notice, which listed the 60 most recent videos posted on the Wings channel. According to YT the BBC had only objected to ONE of those, and after some effort we managed to identify which one it was. It was the first one from this article.
Which is to say, it was an interview WITH ME from Sunday Politics Scotland. The BBC has had YouTube shut down my entire channel for supposedly infringing its copyright by posting a video of myself. This story gets madder and madder.]
