YouTube Bans Another Second Life Safari Vid. Sort of.

by Alphaville Herald on 08/01/07 at 9:18 pm

An anonymous source forwarded us the following communications with YouTube, in reference to a request that a Second Life Safari (by our sometimes misguided friend Petey) be taken down because it (i) violated copyright (Harry Potter and Ron Weasely being trademarked characters) and (ii) depicted sex with between minors (Harry Potter and Ron Weasely being fictional minors). Interestingly, the YouTube person does not say whether these or some other reasons were the cause of removal, and more interestingly, seems to be oblivious to the fact that the video is back up. Good luck keeping up with this one, YouTubers.

Here is where it was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?eurl=&v=gT_xtE4hHF8
Here is where it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gezwIN9OSw

The correspondence is below the fold.

Forwarded message
From: Copyright Service
Date: Jan 4, 2007 xxxxx PM
Subject: Re: [#xxxxx] Copyright Inquiry
To: xxxxx

Hi there,

Sorry for the delay in response, but this video has already been taken
down.

Sincerely,

Erik
The YouTube Team

Original Message Follows:
—-
From: …..
Subject: Copyright Inquiry
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 xxxxx

Username: ….. Video: None
http://www.youtube.com/watch?eurl=&v=gT_xtE4hHF8

This video contains:

A. Use of unlicensed trademarked characters (from the Harry Potter
series).
B. Qualifies as child pornography as it clearly depicts minors engaging in
sexual acts. (Harry Potter and Ron Weasely both being fictional, but very
underage characters.)

21 Responses to “YouTube Bans Another Second Life Safari Vid. Sort of.”

  1. Crissa

    Jan 8th, 2007

    I don’t think this video actually violates any law…

    …And ugh, that was horridly long and boring. Why do people think of scandalous things to do, do them, and then complain about other people not being nosey enough to stop them?

  2. Euronymous J Watermellon

    Jan 8th, 2007

    Hurrah! Another victory for free speech!

    The Prokovsky army marches on keeping the trains running on time!

  3. A friend of your ex wife's

    Jan 8th, 2007

    Wow, I haven’t visited your crappy blog since 2004. Anyway, Urize-nut, you’ve been warned many times, by me and my fans. Now I’m giving you a last chance to remove the fake interview with Angelica and comments, if you won’t, I’ll add you on dontdatehimgirl.com. I have your pictures. and I’ll also reveal that you’re a closet crossdresser who cheated on your ex wife with another transvestite, and more..

  4. Urizenus

    Jan 9th, 2007

    Haha, Angelica returns. I think what you are really saying deep inside is that you want to meet that Bulgarian taxi driver. Sorry, he’ll never wear a dress for *you*.

  5. Petey

    Jan 9th, 2007

    You know, you can argue, as Prokofy does, that what I do is immoral, unethical, or just plain mean.

    But at least everything I do is protected by law. Even if this was virtual child pornography (which it isn’t), it would be protected by the First Amendment. Furthermore, the use of trademarked/copyrighted stuff is fine for satirical/parody/ridiculous purposes, which this clearly is.

    I can also explain the discrepency. They removed my first video when Anshe’s DMCA filing caused my account to be deleted. The new video is hosted on my new YouTube account.

    If they delete it again, I’ll just host it elsewhere, as I have been doing for some time.

    I don’t mind being occasionally misguided. Even I have to err sometimes.

  6. Nacon

    Jan 9th, 2007

    This report is officially a fucktard to all series degree of retardation.

    Anyone who post a comment after this is only serving themselves to the same degree.

    No exception.

  7. Petey

    Jan 9th, 2007

    Wait, does this mean someone is attempting to file a legal claim on the basis of a video that depicts virtual intercourse between virtual (fictional) entities?

    That’s so fuckin’ meta.

  8. Doubledown Tandino

    Jan 9th, 2007

    Who says that’s harry potter being filmed there? That looks like an avatar with glasses at a strip club.

    Who says that is a child or a minor? Looks like a bunch of pixels to me.

    When did satire become illegal?

  9. King Frederick

    Jan 9th, 2007

    For the Harry Potter video, me and a bunch of people went in the most inappropriate avatars we could think of to a club called “The Barbie Club” and played around on the poseballs. There’s no actual “sex” going on in the video, just creepy pictures of Harry and Ron playing on the sex balls, fully clothed, with no virtual genitals involved. I can understand why YouTube would take it down, as it did include nudity from some of the avatars (e.g. the virtual strippers) that were watching us goof off.

  10. King Frederick

    Jan 9th, 2007

    “Wait, does this mean someone is attempting to file a legal claim on the basis of a video that depicts virtual intercourse between virtual (fictional) entities?”

    I wouldn’t mind if Linden Labs destroyed the *real* ageplayers that engage in *actual* child pornography. People should focus on monstrosities like this:

    http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h94/ignavus/SecondLife/SickenedLife1.jpg

    Instead of goofy satires with no actual sexual images involved.

  11. humanoid

    Jan 9th, 2007

    I almost wish LL would go after the age players, just to show the Puritanical cretins among us how impractical it would would be. It could be done, but not without destroying our ability to customize avatars to the extent we can. I doubt LL is going to voluntarily delete a such a major feature. The ability to customize one’s looks and build stuff is pretty much SL in a nutshell.

  12. King Frederick

    Jan 9th, 2007

    Oh, goodness, here come the puritanical cretins with their caterwauling. “Pedophilia is bad,” they say, “we should strongly discourage people who use Second Life to create child pornography,” they say. Don’t they know that if you take the child pornography out of Second Life it will ruin our ability to create child avatars for harmless purposes?

    ~sighs wistfully~

  13. Crissa

    Jan 9th, 2007

    Oh, goodness me! Are you telling me it’s immoral or illegal for adults to pretend to be children?

    I suppose we should lock up all those authors of childrens’ books, then!

  14. Crissa

    Jan 9th, 2007

    PS – some of the constraints on modifying the avatar mesh are officially designed to limit players from making ‘underaged’ avatars, according to a Linden dev.

    So… They already try to stop it. But it’s rather pointless, as long as we can manipulate the animations. How about going after real porn rather than virtual porn, eh?

  15. King Frederick

    Jan 9th, 2007

    “Oh, goodness me! Are you telling me it’s immoral or illegal for adults to pretend to be children?”

    Some ageplayer always comes in and says “I just like to pretend to be five years old. I only want to play tea with my pretend sister and pretend daddy. I don’t have sex! How dare you smear me with a broad brush!”

    No one is talking about you. Please stop playing dumb.

    It was already made clear who the discussion is about:

    http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h94/ignavus/SecondLife/SickenedLife1.jpg

    We are talking about the pedophile subset of the “ageplayer” community.

    Don’t obfuscate.

  16. King Frederick

    Jan 9th, 2007

    I just went back to the place in that screenshot to get a couple pictures of the poseballs, when I encountered this scene instead.

    **This image is not safe for work, not safe for your family, and not safe for your soul. I have covered the genitals up with traffic signs**

    http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h94/ignavus/Image1-7.jpg

    And here, an even more disgusting screenshot, with the person’s profile description: “Precocious and curious 8 year-old, easily led astray especially by adults”

    http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h94/ignavus/Image3censored.jpg

    I wonder what kind of “childrens’ books” Crissa has been reading?

  17. Stacey Sugar

    Jan 10th, 2007

    I have just looked at this video. I was not aware this film contained scenes shot at Barbie Club until today. The owners of the club did not authorise the use of the premises for the production of this machinima. We are also concerned with its content. The management & staff at Barbie Club do not agree with any sexual act involving minors, even when the characters are virtual. This machinima could be classed as an act of griefing. We will be discussing this with LindenLabs to see if action can be taken. We do not want a few rotten apples tarnishing the 16 months of hard work we’ve put in to build up the Barbie Club.

  18. Petey

    Jan 10th, 2007

    AHAHAHAHAHAHA

    But goddammit the Internet police succeeded and the video is down again. Time to go create another YouTube account.

  19. Bedevere Octagon

    Jan 10th, 2007

    Petey! You pissed of the almighty power of the internet(s)!

    Nice Job!

    And Stacy lets be real, this is free advertising for you. I am sure much worse things go on there.

  20. humanoid

    Jan 10th, 2007

    “We do not want a few rotten apples tarnishing the 16 months of hard work we’ve put in to build up the Barbie Club.”

    Yeah. I wouldn’t want the reputation of a place dedicated to dudes whacking it to low-poly 3D models to have it’s reputation damaged.

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