FOX News Copyright Holders Censor Sky News UK Live Stream

The Sky News TV channel, specifically its official YouTube based live video stream, was taken down last night following a complaint by FOX News in what appears to be the latest example of overzealous automated copyright linked Internet stupidity. On top of that Fox, which shares its parent company with Sky, also managed to screw up its own stream. Doh.

Granted this isn’t strictly ISP news, but it’s too interesting not to cover and plays into the wider battle between Rights Holders and Internet access / content. It’s also an example of how, in today’s modern world of automated copyright linked Internet takedown notices, it’s easy for the censorship trolls to get it wrong and that can have serious ramifications.

The situation began last night after Sky News began streaming the on-going debate between Republican presidential candidates, but shortly after that the stream (shown here) was stopped by YouTube and replaced with the following message: “Sky News L…” This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Fox News Network, LLC.”

As a result anybody visiting the Sky News website stream or going direct to YouTube would not have been able to view the live news service, which was effectively censored and there’s a strong argument for why something like this should NEVER happen to a legitimate news organisation (e.g. free speech).

Now for those who may not be aware of the added irony, FOX and Sky are both part of Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling media empire (21st Century Fox) and as a result there are occasionally some cross-over pieces between the two channels.

In an added dash of irony those in the USA who were attempting to watch the debate via FOX’s own live stream found it a struggle when the network became overloaded, which left Sky’s stream as the only working one online.. until they pulled it. Clever, very clever.

Mercifully Sky News were able to get their stream back online by doing what most ordinary folk would do and simply setting up another one with a different ID (here). Meanwhile it’s likely that the issue was caused by a notoriously inaccurate automated DMCA take-down notice request, although as yet this has not been confirmed.