Further Update: The Columbus Dispatch editor, Ben Marrison, blogs about why the paper took down the YouTube video: “We must protect our copyrighted material.”
Update: Lost Remote commenter Ryan Squire found this: The Columbus Dispatch has posted the video on YouTube, a day after ordering the video service to remove it.
The paper posted the clip on its own YouTube profile it created today, according to the “joined” date on the page. It’s a little late this time, but we salute stations and papers that establish their own YT channels.
Earlier: A day after The Columbus Dispatch ordered a takedown of “The Golden Voice” Ted Williams video, the web has responded by posting the video more than 100 times on YouTube. (At least, that’s by my approximation. The actual number is, likely, more.) The Dispatch is feeling the wrath, too. Many comments in the Dispatch’s follow-up stories about Williams are similar to what user Rosie Marquez commented in the original LR story:
“Bad paper, naughty, naughty! Why doesn’t the Dispatch spend time writing a nice follow up story. An uplifting piece on how thanks to an anonymous You Tuber, this man now has a bright future and won’t be homeless anymore.”
Certainly, The Dispatch has its defenders. LR commenter Mike writes:
“[H]ow can all of you, most of you in the broadcasting industry, seriously sit there and defend blatant theft of copyright material? Seriously unbelievable that you can all attack the Dispatch – the victim – for standing up and not allowing their property to be stolen and their rights violated.”
Of interest – in a follow-up story, the Dispatch (sort of) credits the web with helping Williams, referring to him as “[T]he Columbus panhandler-turned-viral sensation.” It does not mention how Williams came to be that “viral sensation.”
