Trying to Hide Bad Reporting with Bad Copyright Claims

Remember how I got sucked into an April Fool's Day prank by Improv Everywhere? Remember how a local TV news station also got sucked in and reported the prank as fact? Remember how Improv Everywhere made fun of them and their bad reporting and posted a clip of their news segment on YouTube and their website?

Well the TV station in question, CW 11, claimed the clip infringed on their copyright and had YouTube take it down. From Improv Everywhere:

What’s more interesting is the fact that their original broadcast used our content without permission. They simply put “YOUTUBE” on the screen to indicate that’s where they found the video. So it’s OK for them to air content that we shot and own, but it’s not OK for me to upload their footage of the content they took from me? It’s “fair use” for the news to take a video off of YouTube and broadcast it, but it’s not “fair use” for a citizen to expose their poor reporting on his own content?

If CW 11 was trying to hide their gaffe, they went about it the wrong way. There's nothing the internet hates more than attempts to hide things:



CW 11 News Falls for Fake Improv Everywhere April Fool's Mission - video powered by Metacafe