YouTube Pulls Parody Videos of Guitar Greats
Feb 5th, 2008 by Guitar MX Admin
| YouTube has buckled under pressure from some anonymous source (more on this below) and removed the hilarious Shred videos which parodied famous guitar players “shredding” on the guitar. Their shredding was overdubbed with horrible guitar sounds and awkward applause and were a big hit with YouTube visitors. |  |
It’s unclear why the videos were removed. YouTube removed guitar lesson videos last summer in a copyright dispute, but these videos were hardly copyright violations, as parodies fall under the fair use doctrine of US copyright law. So why did YouTube pull them?
Santeri Ojala, the creator of the Shred videos, also known as StSanders, had this to say in an email to Wired.com:
Three videos were removed from my account just before the whole account came crumbling down. I’m not saying who contacted the YouTube demanding the removal of a video, but the info is there and some fans have already found it. Nevertheless, the artists that can’t take joke aren’t to be blamed. I mean, if someone doesn’t have a sense of humor, then he doesn’t and that’s it. The villain here is the “Broadcast Yourself, if you dare” quarters. I know their policy is to supervise the copyright orders “which must be obeyed at all times,” but why in the most obvious copyright infringement cases the corporate eyes are being turned away? I’d like to know what paragraph I did violate. The shreds already fell into the “fair use” category in ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live
It’s rumored that the take down was ordered by management representing none other than the ultra thin-skinned guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen. His management team has ordered that parody videos of Malmsteen be cleansed from YouTube in the past, and some suspect that he may be behind this one as well. Whoever it was really needs to get a sense of humor, and YouTube needs to grow a spine.
Wired.com is following the story closely, as will Guitar MX.
[...] YouTube Pulls Parody Videos of Guitar Greats YouTube pulled the hilarious “Shreds” videos, which parodied the performance of guitar greats. They were removed due to copyright complaints, even though parodies are not bound by copyright laws. Some people need a sense of humor. [...]