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Battle over animal abuse clips on web
An animal-rights group accused the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association of misusing copyright law to stop videos of allegedly cruel treatment of animals from being posted on Google's YouTube.com.
- Bloomberg
- Published: 00:01 June 14, 2008
Chicago: An animal-rights group accused the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association of misusing copyright law to stop videos of allegedly cruel treatment of animals from being posted on Google's YouTube.com.
Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (Shark), a Geneva-based group, posted videotapes of rodeos on YouTube "in order to expose and publicise animal abuse, injuries and death", according to the complaint the group filed in Chicago federal court.
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association of Colorado Springs, Colorado, sanctions rodeo events in the US.
In December 2007, the association delivered take-down notices to YouTube, claiming the animal-rights group violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, according to the complaint.
The cowboys group told YouTube it owned the copyrights to the posted videos and hadn't authorised any such use, according to court papers. YouTube then closed Shark's account and disabled access to all the videos the rights group posted.
The cowboy group "can't claim copyright in any live rodeo event," Shark said in its court papers.
The rights group claims the cowboys invoked the copyright act "in order to chill Shark's efforts to raise public awareness of animal abuse at PRCA-sanctioned events.
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