OVER THE EDGE March 14, 2007 13 JEREMY JOHNSON CoLUMNIST/STAFF WRITER There are days I wonder if the news is getting more and more absurd. While I personally don’t always like waving the censorship flag, but the more recent develop- ments in relation to YouTube def- initely has me waving the censor- ship flag along with a copyright abuse flag, Well, some interesting things happened as of late. The first big item is Viacom ordering 100,000 video clips be removed from You- Tube. The news item appeared in a lot of mainstream news stations, but there was a very important question that was missed almost (every?) time: “How can Viacom AANA TINS CONTRIBUTER Dear OTE; OTE nhite students on national and world events every. month. The social focus of the paper. reflects the deep thinking and global concems of the univer- sity community, as well as com- mitment to local responsibility. _ However, I was. reading the e of OTE when I saw Amber Richard’s interesting take _ lack History month. While eve that the creation t Pe ge Black History month is a momen- PP are latest I on B we t pare e an article of this quality. - As both a senior fader and — a die-hard procrastinator, | be- lieve wholeheartedly in pushing be so accurate on such a large scale?” Simple answer, it turns out, they can’t. What Viacom ap- parently (unconfirmed, but very obviously) did was do a search with various keywords and blan- keted all the results with a copy- right infringement notice. As a re- sult, Viacom actually admitted that there were up to 60 mistakes so far. Here’s the most popular example of a false copyright infringement takedown notice. Someone up- loaded a.30 second home movie titled “Sunday nite dinner at Red- bones” which portrayed a family eating a delicious rib meal. The problem for Viacom? The name “Redbones’ was too close to Via- coms Chairman ‘Redstone’. As a result, the video (among others including a music video by a non- Viacom artist) were yanked from Youtube even though Viacom did not own the rights to that video in the first place. As a result, EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has requested that all issues for false takedown notices contact the foundation. If you think that’s ridiculous, the next one blew me-away over how ridiculous it was. A person. by the name of Kyle Machulis shot a video at a concert and uploaded some of the footage on YouTube. Was it an artist complaining? No. Was it a record company com- plaining? No. Was it anyone seen on the video complaining? No. Copyright VS YouTube - Protection or Censorship? Was it the owner of the facility complaining? No. So where was the complaint coming from? Ap- parently, in the video, some people in the concert tried performing portions of a famous dance move called “The Electric Slide” A per- son by the name of Richard Silver complained. He owns a website called ‘the-electricslide.com’ Sil- ver basically complained that he owned the rights to the ever fam- ous dance move (which, as a no- brainer comment, is performed everywhere royalty free anyway) The allegation is that he wants to prevent dancers from perform- ing the move “incorrectly”. The biggest concern is that this is an example of the abuse Copyright Amanda VS Amber Amanda - “[Amber’s] article [was] juvenile, short-sighted and poorly written...” Amber - “this is not going to stop me from writing for the paper in the near future.” deadlines with various methods of procrastination but at the end of the day, this is a topic that de- _ serves, at the very Teast, an edit- ing job. There ate amazing people that have made advancements in civil rights in. the last year, dec- ade and century. Names like An- gela Davis, ‘Maya Angelou, and Roy Wilkins come to mind. For __ brevity’s sake 1 won't detail their achievements, but monrane i tO Jook them cial history, the article is juvenile, ae - short-sighted and poorly written(a oe. sees Admit ots - $tere s is this : ee every day.” While I believe that Amber's description of Oprah is pretty self-contained in awk- wardness, f agree. Oprah's recent ereation of an all-girls. school in _ that things are “ _can ride the bus and it’s okay. That there is no social sirife, there is no South Africa is an amazing thing for girls who face.a yery. difficult life’; however, Amber refers to “helping people” as though it is qualified beyond the humanitar- jan aspect, something unexpected and unusual for someone “like” Oprah. It is easy to fecognize big “ames because they are every- ‘day topics. Iti is harder to move to what isn’ ee, of isn’t recog- “who ne us ‘out aoe G It’s a a great to know that we've made is such large leaps i in race-relations _ that we are letting minorities help YF open. doors? But. more troubling the article, read deeper than the pronoun: abuse, implies ne” now. People © This brings 1 me e my pecond 's ® point, 4 constant use of “us” ; *._-According t | civil agitation, and there is no in- equity or discrimination. ‘This ts not true, So Vil close ‘with @ dient: quote from the article: “Dr King told “us that blacks and whites could *not* get along.” Dr, King did teach us something, but not that. Dr King moved thousands of people to care and voice con- cers. Dr King was one of the many people that brought hope to a turbulent era of political unrest and social progress. ever truly understand. My. life- span as white female is projected — at about 85, while the New Eng- land Journal of Medicine reports that “black men in Harlem were Tess likely to reach the age of 65 then men in Bangladesh.” Black holders can get away with in the US thanks to the infamous DMCA. No, I am not making this up. Go to eff.org and see this for yourself or Google “Electric Slide infringement” (first result should be an entry in WIRED’s blog, sec- ond result is the entry st chillinge- ffects.org) So, according to some, you can slap a copyright on a certain way you move your body. Just. when you thought Copyright has reached rock bottom, someone like Silver throws you a shovel. Personally, the most absurd thing is that foreign lobbyists are trying to implement the same bad legislation in Canada. I think I’ll stop writing now before I scream. males comprise about half of the US's incarceration. rate (eight times higher thay white: males), and only account for 6 percent. of the general population, For the most part, | can do whatever 1 want. My freedom is not lim- ited by other people’s perceptions, fears, or prejudices. I know with certainty that I take this for grant- ed (and | am well aware that 1 am not the only one). Black history month is important for the at- ae - titudes of today as much as it is Admittedly, as an almost- _ middle class female, I don’t en- _-trely “get the enormity of this: _ issue and the importance of these events. The comparably smaller _ bits of discrimimation | have been — victim of allow me to empathize, ache and be outraged, but I won’t important for the recognition of events of the past, and sated proper attention. Ps. I really hove that this article was meant to be satirical. ion is “any press is "right? How true is that when basic facts are skewed and important issues lack editing for attention of stimulating events like the winter ball? _ PPS. We miss Andrew. AMBER L. Ricuarps Siare Wane Dear Amanda; I am sorry to hear thar my my writing. Let me ‘assure you, although your email to the OTE ‘ _selfama second year English ma-_ jor and. even though | it’s not only _ me, I am pretty sure. that we all _ have our rough days in the writing | article on “Black History Month” _ persone Ireally love the part in the upset you. Let me assure you that poe my we ees student who is probably crying. me i apy ey __ Then later say that I have the writ- to get you all upset with me and in ie style as. a third grader or was letter where you. said that I stole all my information from a grade going to stop me from writing fe for the pope tt in ee near fat us say that you dislike like my style _of writing. | am going to say right _ _ here and now, when and if OTE tells me to stop writing, | will, _ but until then I am going to. keep writing. | am really. happy on the topics that | chose for this article. 1 would like to tell you. that if you looked way back then when Black - History Month sees was int _ chose ae _ changing the way the world was . like back then. Dr. King did try his best to change the living style back then and he did. Because of : him, blacks are allowed to do so _ many things without getting in trouble such as voting and sitting in a diner. I have talked to a few of my friends and they would have : nd I will make sure that next time 1 ‘in the article, but she just opened a school for those who needed an _ education and couldn’t get it. She like many celebrities has started with no money but look where she is now. She helps people not only because she is the richest in North : America but she wants to, Thanks again for your concern Amanda;