YouTube emerging as major source for news, disaster footage

After the quake and nuke disaster Youtube was the only thing worth watching to get accurate information on contamination risks from nuclear scientists. There was nothing on japanese TV apart from music, game shows and the likes.

Too bad Japan's government will seek to shut this down after October 1st. They secretly passed an Internet bill that will give them and companies unprecedented power to remove anything they don't want you to see in name of "copyright" and "intellectual property".

YouTube present a new kind of media that we have more control and discretion over what we watch. Major broadcasters can't afford to have this. It would seem that you have absolutely NO right to choose what you want to view.

Too bad Japan's government will seek to shut this down after October 1st.

I doubt they will, because they can't.

They secretly passed an Internet bill that will give them and companies unprecedented power to remove anything they don't want you to see in name of "copyright" and "intellectual property".

They can't take down footage taken by individuals, because it is the property of the individual, not of "them".

More than a third of the most-watched videos came from citizens. Than more than half came from news organizations, but footage in those videos sometimes incorporated footage shot by YouTube users.

Also, some of the people who took the footage, got paid by the news organizations who used their footage. So, "intellectual property" doesn't just help the corporations all the time.

Oh, and it's hardly "secret". It was even on here about a month ago.

Until it doesn't suit them, then they just take it off the air.

When I was young, we had things called news programs, and people called reporters. The news was of consitently good quality, well-organized, fairly well-supported, and the analysis was fairly thorough.

When I was young, we had the Vietnam War where the news reporters reported thousands of Viet Cong killed for every American soldier killed. Turns out it was all a pack of lies and the reporters just a bunch of talking parrots repeating whatever the military censors wanted them to say. Ditto for WWII reporters (though they were before my time).

YouTube is safe from most censorship because they actually make an effort to enforce copyright laws. How many times have you tried to view a video there, only to see a note that the video has been removed at the request of the copyright holder, or that the user's account has been deleted for repeated violations of Terms of Service (read: Uploaded too many copyrighted videos). As long as there is ample evidence that YouTube is aggressive on copyright enforcement, countries will be hard-pressed to silence them over copyright issues.

The videos posted on YouTube shortly after the earthquake and tsunami were nothing short of amazing and DEFINITELY instructional. Video of the ground sliding in and out from under a section of road during the earthquake, video of the water just coming and coming, not like the single big wave you see in the movies. Video of people a half an hour after the earthquake driving parallel to the beach, then having their cars washed away when the water arrived. Sobering stuff and it's available to the world for the cost of an internet connection. Yokatta YouTube!

Just try using Youtube over in China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba etc..many of us can use it but there are some countries that are terrified of THE TRUTH!