Jim Jefferies 'Official' Clip Of His 'Gun Control' Routine Taken Down Thanks To Copyright

from the well-that's-great dept

As you may have heard, yesterday there was another mass shooting in the US. I know the topic of mass shootings and gun control and all that raise all sorts of emotions and opinions on all sides of the issue, but this is not the place to discuss them. I'm posting this for a reason that actually does fit into Techdirt's discussion area, and I hope that the conversation stays more closely aligned to the topic of copyright. What's copyright got to do with all of this? Well, after reading some of the news about what happened, I went in search of comedian Jim Jeffries' routine about guns. I'm a big fan of Jeffries, who is damn funny, and I recalled seeing that he did a great routine about guns and gun control in the past. And it seemed timely. So I did a search... and discovered that the video had been taken down. At first, I figured that it must be because someone ripped it and therefore, okay, I can understand it being taken down. But, no, this is the "official" clip uploaded by Jeffries himself. And apparently Netflix did the takedown (probably via ContentID, rather than a DMCA notice): Yes. It is entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that Jeffries has a deal with Netflix that grants Netflix the exclusive rights to this clip. And I'm sure that some of you feel that this is perfectly reasonable, because Jeffries entered into an agreement with Netflix and this is the tradeoff. But something feels wrong about an artist having his own work being taken off his own YouTube account -- never mind the fact that the content might be relevant and timely right now. And it's not like seeing one relatively short clip of a much longer performance somehow hurt Netflix in anyway. If anything, it would seem to encourage people to go to Netflix to watch the whole thing. So here's a chance for Netflix to get some possibly-viral attention, and yet, it's not happening, because copyright law.

To me, that seems like a broken system.

Filed Under: copyright, gun control, jim jeffries, takedown, video
Companies: netflix