Congressional video testimony blocked by copyright claimant!
written by: Jon Claerbout, professor emeritus, Geophysics department, Stanford University
Who is blocking congressional testimony at youtube? Sure looks like Wall Street. I'm gathering the evidence.The youtube-blocked congressional testimony concerns Wall Street fraud.
Here is the transcript of what Bill Black actually said on the congressional floor.
Next, the (longer) written statement by Bill Black.
Statement by
William K. Black
Associate Professor of Economics and Law, University of Missouri --- Kansas City
before the
Committee on Financial Services
United States House of Representatives
regarding
"Public Policy Issues Raised by the Report of the
Lehman Bankruptcy Examiner"
April 20, 2010(There's lots in there besides Lehman bankruptcy.)
Let's figure out who did it.
Everything I say below was blocked, is blocked now (Tue Jan 6 21:12:37 PST 2015). I intend to try get it fixed, after which it won't be blocked any more. I think I know some ways of getting Google to unblock it. But first, wouldn't it be fun to find out who did all the blocking? My search term for finding websites with the blocked video is not very sophisticated. We likely could get many more hits, and more important hits, if we knew how to use Google analytics.
Let us see some blocked sites.
You see the transcript of testimony itself and the written statement at the links above. [I have kept a backup copy of Black's written statement.]
Would you like to test the youtube link yourself? Here it is. Try it!
Today (1-7-2015) you will see the message: " 'Bill Black's eye-popping op...' The YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement."Would you like to see this on the website of an established political commentator (firedoglake.com)? Try this. I hope that page does not disappear. I shall ask its author for a safe-keeping copy here at Stanford University.
Would you like to see it blocked at the website of Barry Ritholtz? His website has a transcription of everything the entire verbal testimony (more concise than the PDF document).
I had a link on my website to the youtube of Black's congressional testimony. When my link went dead, I was relieved to find a working link at http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/04/20/transcript-video-bill-black-testimony-on-lehman-bankruptcy Shortly afterwards, that went dead too, as you have seen.
Let's see the video they are blocking!
Hey, I discovered a link to a video copy that is not yet blocked! But this copy is not the original. This copy has been imprinted by Firedoglake. I would like a copy of their video for backup purposes. If you know how to copy it, please help me. Or I'll ask them.
Let's see more frustrated websites.
Another blockage at Ron Paul Forums.
Another blockage at Twitter (Judy Abraham).
Another blockage at The real news.com
Another blockage at Silver Bear Cafe
Another blockage at Dprogram.net
Let's find many more noteable folks being blocked.
The hits above are merely the tip of the iceburg. I found them with the unfocused search fragment Bill Black's eye popping . You can find many more that way. Doubtless more notable websites are being blocked, many of them. But, I don't know how to find them. Can you help?
While you are waiting for this to settle out, here are two clean official sources of related material:
- Clear PBS video by Bill Moyers and professor William K. Black.
- Very clear 15 minute lecture by a Stanford professor
Here it is!
A friend (in Google) pointed to C-SPAN. From C-SPAN here is! Hooray! They provide this "embed"
From which I deduce this link.
Here is what my friend says:
I don't know how to figure out the page rank number. A short search on the web showed some dubious tools that claim to estimate this for you. But I would not hold my breath. Keep in mind that many pages now use abbreviated proxy links which makes the art of counting links even harder.
So the YouTube policy and legal environment is fairly straightforward in the US, I believe. Only the copyright holder can demand "take down". Your video seems to be owned by C-Span. So I assume that they must have asked for the take down.
I looked at the C-Span site and it seems they have a video library -- I could find this video.
I looked and C-Span is funded by public money. I found a short discussion on their copyright policy at their Wikipedia page (below) and it sounds that they do protect their livestreams from being distributed by third party on media like YouTube:
Prior to the initiation of the C-SPAN Video Library, websites such as Metavid and voterwatch.org hosted House and Senate video records, however C-SPAN contested Metavid's usage of C-SPAN copyrighted footage. The result was Metavid's removal of portions of the archive produced with C-SPAN's cameras, while preserving its archive of government-produced content.[99] C-SPAN also engaged in actions to stop parties from making unauthorized uses of its content online, including its video of House and Senate proceedings. Most notably, in May 2006, C-SPAN requested the removal ofStephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner from YouTube.[100] After concerns by some webloggers,[101] C-SPAN gave permission for Google Video to host the full event.[102] On March 7, 2007 C-SPAN liberalized its copyright policy for current, future, and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency and now allows for attributed non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet,[103][104] excluding re-syndication of live video streams. The new policy did not affect the public's right to use the public domain video coverage of the floor proceedings of the U.S. House and Senate.[105]
So I assume, it was C-Span that asked for the removal ... but not because of this specific content, but because they want people to watch this on their own video library.