After one or two (or more?) years of being blocked on German Youtube, the full-length noncommercial Sita Sings the Blues movie is once again viewable in Deutschland:
I assume this is because last week I posted this video, complaining about why my 100% legal and painstakingly and expensively licensed movie was blocked in Germany:
Apparently many Germans are none too pleased with GEMA themselves, as indicated by interesting comments here. Some industry shills weighed in as well, but it looks like popular sentiment is against them. The story was shared widely, including in Der Spiegel and the New York Times online editions.
It’s not clear how an American YouTube user is supposed to contest takedowns in Germany. When I was in Berlin recently, it was suggested I find a German lawyer to take some sort of action. At the very least, I would need someone in Germany to contest the takedown on my behalf. I imagine that would have been a slow and possibly expensive process. Then I thought of making this video. Although it took some work (writing a statement – yes I know it’s an imperfect statement, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had – shooting the video, recording the audio via a separate mic, transferring files, editing, compressing, etc.) it was less work than managing an international legal process. And it got results fast! Better still, it contributed to ongoing debates about GEMA and Intellectual Pooperty in general.
My thanks to everyone who helped spread the word about this, and especially people in Germany who checked the Sita Sings the Blues URL and confirmed when the movie was blocked, and when it was unblocked.
So: is “International Pooperty” a spelling mistake or a political statement?
Whoops! That was an error. It’s intellectual pooperty of course. Fixed now, thanks.
Justice? What a treat!
LOL – Nina, you made my day 🙂
Deng Xiao Ping once said “I don’t care if it’s a white cat or a black cat. It’s a good cat as long as it catches mice.”
I am glad that it is viewable in Germany.
There is also a Hindu Religious group trying to block this movie.
http://www.forumforhinduawakening.org/articles/id/preserving/sita-sings-the-blues
In the meanwhile, Anonymous took the GEMA down. (no English version of the news available so far, so here you go with a German one, Babelfish or Google Translate will give you a decent enough translation)
Nice video, Nina! 🙂 I am living in Germany, so this is a constant hassle with YouTube and GEMA. I have also watched several other videos of youtubers about GEMA/YouTube and it could easily be that it is actually not GEMA but YouTube themselves who stop the videos from being broadcasted just to protect themselves from a potential law suit. 🙁 Oh well…