Columbus Dispatch Issues Takedown On Famous YouTube Video Of Homeless Guy With Great Radio Voice

from the dumb-takedowns dept

Fri, Jan 7th 2011 7:33am — Mike Masnick

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:

It's difficult to understand what the Dispatch is thinking. It had such a great story here, all of which was credited to The Dispatch, and its response was to remove all of that goodwill by forcing the video offline.

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Filed Under: columbus dispatch, homeless, radio voice, ted williams

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 7:41am

Your Toolbar is horrible
Hey, TechDirt -- ditch the toolbar! It makes your site run like molasses-soaked garbage.
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Ed, 7 Jan 2011 @ 7:49am

Dispatch Dinosaurs
No reply from @DispatchEditor on Twitter.
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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Scott Skibell, 7 Jan 2011 @ 7:52am

Another example of traditional media failing
This is a real shame. They had nearly 12 million views and then somebody makes this bonehead decision!? They won't get nearly the views on their own homepage and it defeats the purpose of what sharing is all about.

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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This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 7:54am

Agreed about the toolbar
I hate it too. What were they thinking?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 7:57am

dumbass-cliche dept: Use of "...living under a rock" is to stop, replaced with "living all up inside your own ass."
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:04am

Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
I second, triple, and quartripple that.
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el_segfaulto (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:09am

Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
NoScript for Firefox takes care of that quite easily. I didn't even know it existed until I tried loading the site up in IE
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Larry Keltto, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:10am

The Golden Voice
Agreed. If you missed the vid, it's still available on YouTube, as of the morning of Jan. 7:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN2bPy4NQAQ
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:11am

Re: Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
good thing I use Noscript then. What toolbar?
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mosaic user, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:11am

misunderstanding the presentation platform
I believe it is about misunderstanding what YouTube is. Some organizations think "That's a hit! Bring it home!Everyone will come here!" They don't understand the magnitude of what YouTube does in terms of reach, and variety of clips it offers. It is the variety that brings folks there. It's like browsing a library,just to see what's available,and when something is good,it's easy to share because people know where it's located.The Dispatch should have just added a tag line "For more on this story..." and a link to their homepage.

I agree about the toolbar.
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Berenerd (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:13am

Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
Doesn't slow me down. My popup manager gets mad from time to time but it does that on google as well
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TPBer, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:14am

Time for a lesson..
Everyone needs to go to the news site and attempt to stream off their servers. This will bring it down in a rather short time.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:25am

It's up as of 9:30 MDT
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Cowardly Anon, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:30am

I never watched the video on YouTube. I watched it on a bunch of other sites though.

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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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:32am

Re: Agreed about the toolbar
They were thinking.

"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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fogbugzd (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:37am

I like the fact that youtube credits The Dispatch for the notice. I hope The Dispatch learned a lesson about turning god publicity bad. I hour some others did too, but I doubt it.
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average_joe (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:39am

Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
Hey, TechDirt -- ditch the toolbar! It makes your site run like molasses-soaked garbage.

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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zac, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:40am

Re: Time for a lesson..
That's not an intelligent idea. That is exactly what the Columbus Dispatch wants. Everyone should AVOID the Columbus Dispatch website entirely, to show them that issuing a takedown request is a terrible move on their part.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:44am

Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
What toolbar?
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:51am

Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
If you're registered you can turn it off.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:51am

Well that's lame. Probably because some lawyer bitched that the guy who posted it worked there or some such bullshit. They probably own everything that employee does simply for the privilege of working there. How is that Democrazy? You can't even help someone out without some asshole lawyer or the GOP telling you no.
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Huph, 7 Jan 2011 @ 8:55am

Methinks You Should Wait...
Isn't Ted Williams currently in all kinds of talks with employers about voiceover work? Does anyone know if he signed a contract yet? Considering his "story", I imagine he's going to sign an exclusivity contract that for all we know may be retroactive in nature.

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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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 9:06am

Re: Re: Time for a lesson..
i think he's wanting a DDoS
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 9:08am

The question left wanting an answer is "why"?

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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The Real Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 9:10am

Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
You need to ditch your 56k modem and get broadband dude.
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Randy Ray, 7 Jan 2011 @ 9:12am

Ted Williams You Tube Removal
How sad for the Columbus Dispatch! As a former journalist I am disappointed in this papers action against Ted Williams.

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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average_joe (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 9:17am

Re: Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
Good call, I hadn't seen that. Go to Accounts at the top right of the page, and then it's under My Preferences. Thanks.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 9:22am

Re: Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
You dont even need to be registered to turn it off. Just edit preferences.
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TPBer, 7 Jan 2011 @ 9:23am

Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
Works fine with Chrome on OSX w/ only a 2Mb DL only. Just ran speedtest
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ron Rezendes (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 9:31am

But, but, but.....
That's piracy - you thief!! /s
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 9:40am

Re: Re: Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
Ah, didn't realize that was an option if you weren't registered. I imagine it may not stick, though.

Does anyone actually like it?
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Rekrul, 7 Jan 2011 @ 10:01am

It's difficult to understand what the Dispatch is thinking.

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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mike allen (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 10:04am

the vid is all over the web even on the BBC site. The dispatch put it there then issue a take down dont they know how to delete their own stuff from YOU TUBE!!!!!!
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Not an electronic Rodent, 7 Jan 2011 @ 10:06am

Re:
The question left wanting an answer is "why"?
Dammit man! Go lock that big door over there! That'll get the horse back......"
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 10:26am

lol if it wasn't for everyone seeing the video it wouldn't be a story....

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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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 10:31am

Re: Agreed about the toolbar
Why the hell was parent flagged? It's a good point.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 10:34am

Re: Re:
Still does not answer the question "Why?".

There may be a perfectly valid reason having nothing to do with putting horses back in the barn.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 10:43am

Maybe?
They're thinking they can monetize the video? ~shrug~
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 11:00am

Re: Maybe?
Yeah and someone else puts up their own video of Ted Williams and gets all the hits.

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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ECA (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 11:14am

LETS DO IT THE EASY WAY
OK,
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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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 11:23am

Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
Uh, how's about ditching IE6?
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 11:34am

Re: Re: Re: Time for a lesson..
Exactly. Most people will be in for a rude awakening when they realize what bandwidth they've paid for.
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Anonymous Poster, 7 Jan 2011 @ 12:41pm

http://blog.dispatch.com/blog-36/2011/01/the_story_behind_our_asking_yo.shtml
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 12:41pm

I like it
I actually like it when large companies issue takedowns of stuff on YouTube. I know this sounds odd from somebody like me who highly dislikes copyright and other "IP". Really though, actions like this help drive the public's recognition of how copyright is wrong, and evil. The more often takedowns happen the more chances of the public seeing copyright for what it is, evil.
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RobShaver (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 12:51pm

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:
Dear Old Media Company,

Copyright as currently practiced in the USA is stifling innovation, communication and, in some cases, free speech. Everything is copyrighted. Copyright lasts (effectively) forever now. Fair Use is only a defense after you are sued (which means you've already lost if your're the little guy).

The "unauthorized" posting of this video to YouTube did you nothing but good. Your take-down order did you nothing but harm.

Peace,

Rob:-]
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Anonymous Poster, 7 Jan 2011 @ 1:25pm

The Dispatch started their own YouTube channel just so they could repost the video on their own, without credit to the uploader who made it a viral sensation in the first place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv-F5JnnGo0
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 1:31pm

Re:
But copy'right' is for the artist, it's not for the big corporations. Yes, the big corporations own everything the artist and recorder does while employed regardless of where or when they do it (because as long as they're employed they're always on the clock and working for the corporation, even when asleep at night in their own house their actions belong to the corporation) but who cares, copy'right' is still for the artist and not the corporation.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 2:26pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSThiWFDOcI

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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Bryan Price (profile), 7 Jan 2011 @ 3:23pm

I'm not surprised
The Dispatch was one of the first to take up the web in Columbus, they started using cd.columbus.oh.us (working as of about a year ago, now defunct it seems), and supported the Freenet there as well. But they still don't get it.

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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Griff, 7 Jan 2011 @ 5:23pm

Re: Dear Old Media Company
There's a reason it was/still is called the "Columbus Disgrace"

Go figure. Stay classy, Dispatch Media. Stay Classy.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 5:42pm

Was the video shot with his camera on his personal time or was it shot on company equipment on company time?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 5:44pm

Re: Maybe?
They're also thinking that the video provides content that competes with their own content.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2011 @ 6:53pm

Re:
(from the comments on the more recently uploaded video, the video was taken by a cell phone. Seems like Columbus Dispatch shouldn't own it since the person taking the video seems to have taken it on his own "equipment" on his own time).
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JHG999 (profile), 8 Jan 2011 @ 11:16am

Head in wrong location....
Certainly have their head up their butt.....
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Erik, 8 Jan 2011 @ 11:41am

Who gives a shit? You'll have a new stupid video next week.
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Charles, 8 Jan 2011 @ 5:22pm

Re: Re: Re: Your Toolbar is horrible
Thanks
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Smile And Repeat, 9 Jan 2011 @ 4:54am

How Lame The Dispatch Is:
1. The Dispatch is lame

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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