Canal+ commits copyfraud, gets Banksy's painting-shredding video removed from Youtube

In October, a delightful prank by the artist Banksy involved a painting of his shredding itself shortly after a Sotheby's bidder committed to spending £1.04m to buy it.

Banksy shot his own video of the stunt and posted it to Youtube. The video was widely reused by news networks in their coverage of the prank, including by the French giant Canal+.

Canal+ didn't just make a fair use of Banksy's video, though: they also fraudulently claimed copyright over his footage with Youtube's ContentID filter, resulting in his video being censored.

Youtube eventually restored the video: Banksy is famous, and the video is famous, so Youtube presumably bumped this dispute to the front of the queue. But Canal+ will face no penalties for committing copyfraud: it will still enjoy the privilege of being able to use Youtube's ContentID system to arbitrarily censor works based on evidence-free claims of copyright.

If you think this is unfair, strap in: tomorrow, we'll learn whether the European Union will proceed with the new Copyright Directive, and with it, Article 13, which will require all platforms to create ContentID-style copyright filters that anyone can add anything to, with impunity, to censor anything on the internet merely by making unsubstantiated copyright claims.

Apparently, the French media giant Canal+ used the material as well. However, they went a step further and have claimed it as their own, asking YouTube to remove the original, which it did.

“Video unavailable This video contains content from Canal Plus, who has blocked it on copyright grounds,” a message now reads instead.

Banksy’s Own Video Shredded By YouTube Following Canal+ Copyright Claim (Update) [Ernesto/TorrentFreak]