tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131658095945044290.post5286830099734174174..comments2023-10-09T11:27:46.098+01:00Comments on Shepherd's Bush: BBC caves in to lawyersChris Underwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03026438313352911527noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1131658095945044290.post-30471311876514247102009-12-17T08:29:18.000+00:002009-12-17T08:29:18.000+00:00I doubt they'll need to deal with suing blogge...I doubt they'll need to deal with suing bloggers individually - thought they might take on more high profile sites - they'll just keep sending cease & desist letters to any video sharing site that hosts it - YouTube, Vimeo, Blip, etc. Depends on whether Google/YouTube have the resources and the willingness to stand up to them the same way they stood up to the studios' lawsuits over copyrighted material, to find a commercial compromise.<br><br>This is the second BBC-defending comment in a row, but I'm not sure the BBC is in the same position as bloggers and twitterers. They have to respond to legal threats - they can't just ignore them and then let us foot the bill when the court awards damages. Even though the BBC could actually afford a legal defence if unjustly sued, which most bloggers couldn't (which is why you have to be careful how you phrase things - whole blogs can disappear overnight thanks to the libel laws, and personal lawsuits issued). You'll notice that the New Statesman blog post you linked to has been removed, too - so the New Statesman have 'caved like a pack of cards', too.<br><br>The point is that it was the BBC who first published this story on Newsnight - and although Twitter has defeated the attempt to suppress freedom of speech in the Commons, Carter *uck 'never abandoned its attempt to sue the BBC’s Newsnight over a feature on the alleged dumping of toxic waste.' (from that NS article, now copied here:<br>http://is.gd/5qTga<br><br>So it was the BBC who did the investigative journalism that exposed all this in the first place. Surely something worth celebrating for a local org. And then REpublished (as embedded in your post) *after* the lawsuit had been issued, to report on the free speech angle and the Twitter event. Which is more than most commercial news organisations would do.<br><br>I don't want to bang on about it too much, but I think it's a bit much to attack the BBC for being weak - the villains here are Carter-*uck and their evil clients.Ruperthttp://twittervlog.tvnoreply@blogger.com