The Curiosity Rover may have landed safely on the surface of Mars, but like all good things, it’s not invulnerable to completely bogus takedown requests.
Shortly after the rover’s momentous touchdown, NASA posted a choice clip from the control room to its official YouTube channel for any interested viewers who hadn’t bothered to stay up for the real deal. Then, shortly after, the video was rendered unavailable due to a copyright claim by Scripps Local News. Wait, who?
If it wasn’t enough that this was official NASA video posted on the official NASA channel, documenting one of the most important moments in space exploration that’s happened in years, there’s another fun detail: NASA doesn’t even copyright its footage, like ever. A detail which apparently escaped Scripps in its zealous takedown spree. They have a history of this sort of thing. The video has since gone back up, but it stands a particular egregious example of the way YouTube’s Content ID system allows third parties to shoot first and ask questions later when it comes to takedowns. [Motherboard.tv]
