Over the weekend, I posted a youtube link to new video from Impeach on the Beach. The piece was interspliced with images from Iraq. Then, the video was yanked as you can read on this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x286291It wasn't a copyright problem -- youtube found those war images "inappropriate". This is the update Brad Newsham sent last night:
"ABSOLUTELY AWESOME BEACH IMPEACH VIDEO – My friend of nearly 40 years, a professional videographer named Jamie Cavenaugh, was at the Ocean Beach event on Jan 6, and a videographer colleague of his was up in the helicopter. A couple of days after the event I called and asked Jamie when we might see some video. Jamie said it would take him a while to make something special out of all the footage, and then I forgot all about it until last Friday when he emailed a link to youtube, where he’d just posted the video. He had juxtaposed images from the beach with images from Iraq and had put it all to some rockin music. Three minutes and 49 seconds later I was covered in goosebumps, had tears in my eyes and some weird choking action going on in my chest, and, mostly, wanted to go out and dance all night. Everyone who saw the video agreed. By Saturday night it had 250 views, by Sunday morning it had 750. It was rated a solid 5-stars and was going viral… And then youtube pulled it down – told Jamie it had “inappropriate” images. What bullshit! We’ve got a friggin inappropriate WAR going on in OUR names, and to think it’s somehow inappropriate for us to see images of it… Jamie and I are looking for a place to post it where it won’t get taken down, but believe me, you’re gonna want to see this thing – it’s amazing… If you know anyone at youtube, please forward this paragraph to them…"
At YouTube, I find this under their Code of Conduct:
"YouTube is not a shock site. Don't post gross-out videos of accidents, dead bodies and stuff like that.
This includes war footage if it's intended to shock or disgust."http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelinesNow, the images in Jamie's video didn't have the aim to "shock or disgust" gratuitously but instead argued for a leadership change in the United States. Those images weren't placed there disrespectfully or to harm the viewer but to make a very specific point about the devaluation of human life under George W. Bush.
YouTube got this one wrong, imo. Jamie Cavenaugh's Beach Impeach video shouldn't have been taken down.
Contact form for YouTube
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/request.py?contact_type=policy&submit=Continue