Columbus Dispatch Issues Takedown On Famous YouTube Video Of Homeless Guy With Great Radio Voice
from the dumb-takedowns dept
Unless you've been under a rock the past week, you probably have heard about Ted Williams, the homeless guy in Columbus, Ohio, who panhandles off of a highway, but whose panhandling sign noted that he had an amazing radio voice. Someone from the Columbus Dispatch shot a short video of the guy showing off his voice, and after it went up on YouTube it went viral. Within days there were over a million views, and people were talking about how the guy really deserved a voice over job. The Cleveland Cavaliers offered him a job and apparently MSNBC has hired him to do some voiceover work. All that sounds good.And then... despite the tons of views and positive attention... Mathew Ingram points us to the news that the Dispatch has issued a takedown on the video:
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Filed Under: columbus dispatch, homeless, radio voice, ted williams
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Your Toolbar is horrible
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This site is totally unusable with Internet Explorer on my Windows 7 machine. Using Firefox with Ad Block works great though, so that's what I use.
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Does anyone actually like it?
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Dispatch Dinosaurs
Maybe you'd have better luck?
Killing a video that has 12m views in 72 hours
is a great example of why papers like this archaic rag
deserve to go Chapter 7.
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Another example of traditional media failing
It's just another example where traditional media fails to understand the new world–a world where they don't control the message.
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Agreed about the toolbar
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"Look at how many people viewed this video. Imagine if we charged for those views how much money we could have made. Quick lets get this video pulled down, every view is money stolen from us!"
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The Golden Voice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN2bPy4NQAQ
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misunderstanding the presentation platform
I agree about the toolbar.
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Time for a lesson..
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Re: Time for a lesson..
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Re: Re: Time for a lesson..
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So, now they have squashed the legit video so people will have to go and find it elsewhere on the interwebs. Good job!
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But, but, but.....
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Methinks You Should Wait...
Perhaps the Cleveland Cavaliers want to buy the video as a promotional tool. Who knows?
This knee-jerk reaction to what may just be a negotiation tactic is silly. The damn Dispatch put the video on Youtube themselves, I imagine they understand what Youtube is "about".
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Perhaps it was a hissy fit. Perhaps it was because of a legitimate business reason.
Doesn't it seem a bit premature to mock the paper with having an answer to "why"?
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There may be a perfectly valid reason having nothing to do with putting horses back in the barn.
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Ted Williams You Tube Removal
You took what might be the widest coverage your newspaper has ever had and flushed it down the toilet.
I feel sorrow for Ted Williams plight and I am glad he has "found his way back!"
Unfortunately all I can feel for your newspaper is shame.
I send this letter to encourage you to rethink what you did and learn from it. Learn that "You serve the public good. You serve the public every day. You serve to protect the public citizen in every way."
Quit competing and start serving!
Randy
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It's not difficult to understand at all. It's the same reasoning that's at the heart of every other copyright-related takedown in history; "MINE! MINE! MINE!"
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They probably have footage of aliens visiting but since it cannot be viewed due to copyright claims no one will ever see the video..lol
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Maybe?
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Re: Maybe?
What is really unfathomable is that the video linked by Larry Keltto had the newspaper's logo at the beginning and the end of the video. Until they shut down the original video, they were going to get traffic their website from that alone...perhaps from people looking for more videos of Ted Williams.
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LETS DO IT THE EASY WAY
LETS do this easily..
Can we get Millions of people to HIT their site and watch video at the same time?
LETS see how well their servers hold up.
Give them warning and suggest we are coming over to LOAD Test their server. Let me add, that I have seen Game servers CRASH under heavy traffic.
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I like it
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Dear Old Media Company
Here's their reasoning, such as it is: http://www.topix.net/forum/source/columbus-dispatch/T9JG877NU02MHP799#lastPost
I left this comment on that page:
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Re: Dear Old Media Company
Go figure. Stay classy, Dispatch Media. Stay Classy.
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What I really love about this story is how appreciative of what he was given he seems to be. Hard times are awful I know from experience but they also are some of the best thing that could happen to anyone, it makes you appreciate of life and what you have, no matter how little it is, it all becomes a blessing.
Most people forget what it was like to have nothing, I hope that for this 53 years old that lesson is now engraved in his soul, it makes us better, we do better by others and they in turn do better by us.
About the Dispatch reaction "Shame on you people".
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I'm not surprised
Their FM station carries the Buckeyes games, but you have to pay for it. Of course, there are other sources that work just as well that are free. Their TV website used to run play by play live until recently. Why would you stop that mid-season? Especially if I was still living there and just had to turn the radio on?
I'm completely baffled.
It still doesn't affect that I'm very glad and happy for Ted Williams.
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Head in wrong location....
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How Lame The Dispatch Is:
2. The Dispatch is extra lame for trying to defend its stupid move
3. The Dispatch is super lame for thinking that youtube would put up a link to their site - Ha!
4. The Dispatch is extra super lame for only having a few thousand hits while the AP and RT have 100s of thousands of hits and there are still copies with millions
Say Thank you to "User/Ritchey" for the best viral video of 2011 and Thanks to "The Dispatch" for killing it with these T-shirts: http://bit.ly/efj7pY - The one with the Broken video is cute.
Shame on you Dispatch - you gained nothing and lost everything.
Oh did I mention how lame The Dispatch is?
PS: Could you picture the guy at Youtube who had to take down the video? I bet he cried and then said something like "Damn you Dispatch!"
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