Since this hasn’t probably got outside of Italy all the attention it deserves, here’s the story: ten days ago Unione Nazionale Consumatori (UNC) that is one of the biggest consumers associations of Italy, announced that YouTube has shutdown their official channel on YouTube.com (unioneconsumatori) for copyright violation. As you can see from the snapshot here, as of July 2, 2011, 1520 GMT, that account is still blocked.
From what UNC says, the only “violation” is that they had put on YouTube (among many completely original videos) short excerpts of… interviews to UNC representatives aired from the Mediaset and R.T.I networks, in order to “give some information about topics of general interest”.
That’s fair use if it ever existed, I’d say. It didn’t matter, the channel was suspended on April 29th 2011 after two complaints from R.T.I, says UNC. What now? I’m really curious to see how this story ends. As far as you are concerned…
Please do spread the word about this absurdity even outside Italy. If you want to know more, please read the formal complaint (in English) that UNC sent to YouTube.