The ICC has ordered YouTube, the online video-sharing website, to remove World Cup clips claiming copyright infringement. The ICC and the rights holder to the event, the Global Cricket Corporation, took the action after hundreds of World Cup clips appeared on the site.
“We are here to protect the commercial broadcast rights for the ICC and GCC and there is an issue here,” Christopher Stokes, the chief executive of online rights protection agency NetResult, which represents the ICC, told Media Guardian.
“In general there is a dilemma for rights holders in that they want people to enjoy the event but also have stringent contracts with TV broadcasters and with mobile rights holders. In today’s world, broadcasters buy highlights as well as live coverage and mobile rights means clips. There is an obligation to protect them.”
YouTube was reported to have agreed to the request and the clips were gradually being removed from the site. However, one of the problems faced is that as fast as the offending clips are withdrawn, more are uploaded. A search this morning showed only a handful of clips from the Bangladesh v India game, and yet a few hours later it was dozens
While naturally I do not endorse piracy, considering how limited cricket’s appeal is in the world; coupled with very restrictive (and in some case prohibitively expensive) tv coverage in most countries, I tend to agree with Andrew Miller in his article “Once more cricket shoots itself in the foot”. Some excerpts are as follows:
Does this game know of any other ways to shoot itself in the foot? Only three days ago it was suggested on this website that the events of the past week might serve as a wake-up call for cricket’s fiscally obsessed powerbrokers. Fat chance. A game run increasingly by lawyers for lawyers, has deemed it necessary to go to war on the very online enthusiasts who can spread the word of a game whose reputation has been dragged through the mincer.
Wikipedia, that other giant of online information-sharing, quotes a US television executive on the subject of YouTube’s copyright infringements. “If I found part of a successful show up on YouTube today, I’d probably pull it down immediately,” says the source. “If I had a show that wasn’t doing so well in the ratings and could use the promotion, I wouldn’t be in a rush to do that.”
How well is cricket doing in the ratings right now? A certain murder-mystery investigation is currently storming the charts, but in the absence of the slighted Indian audience, who else is rushing to tune in? Australian feedbackers to Cricinfo on Saturday night were in a fury that their domestic TV channels were not airing their showdown against South Africa, while England fans without a satellite dish are equally up the creek.
ICC certainly needs to revisit its business model… every organization has to realize the potential of the internet in enabling its value streams. Rather than spending the energy in trying to curtail YouTube clips, they need to see how they can convert the threat into an opportunity.
Its so clear that ICC is losing track of their bigger objective which is to popularize the sport around the world. Taking away free publicity through sharing of small clips is such an idiotic decision. Its not like cricket is very popular in the world as it is. Oh well!
And ICC would be ever-ready to fix, I mean arrange, another ODI series between IND-PAK in Antarctica to "promote" cricket in remote regions. No wonder there is a whole mafia involved in match fixing and no one is trying to promote cricket in these off shore series' ...
If they were concerned about promoting cricket AT ALL, this is the last thing they'd want to do!
I have 4 director accounts on YouTube, one of the accounts is #20 most viewed director account.
They cannot do anything, its too big. And for some reason my 3 accounts got deleted, because people complained. So i thought of making my own YouTube site which I did, so now I host all the videos there, so no one can touch them :D
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by ICC Development (International) Limited & Global Cricket Corporation Pte Limited
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