A short clip of an action shot for Transformers 3 was filmed by some eager fans who were working in the building adjacent to the set, and the footage of the short scene was put online.
But thanks to Paramount’s opposition to free publicity the YouTube clip was removed. Not the first time this has happened, but I was suprised to see how this is offending the poster.
Ben Brown was a fan of Transformers 3, so when he saw the film being shot outside of an office building he was visiting, he knew what it was immediately. He used his iPhone to shoot three minutes of footage, which actually had some pretty interesting material from what is apparently an action scene in the upcoming film.
After putting it on Youtube, the video got popular quite quickly, accumulating 36,000 views in 48 hours. But in yet another sign that our DMCA takedown system is out of control, Paramount Pictures filed a copyright claim against the video, causing Google to automatically take it down.
Now even The Movie Blog has occassionally been issued requests to take down copyrighted materials at the request of the studio. And while we are more than willing to co-operate with the claims, we do so grudgingly, as we shake our heads at the free advertising and publicity we are giving them that they don’t seem to want.
I don’t disagree with /Film that removing the footage only hurts Paramount and the buzz all this generates in the online community, but here is where I disagree.
Their article seems to side with the opinion of Ben Brown, who is offended that his clip was removed and challenges that this video is not copyright because the film isn’t done yet.
It IS Paramount’s copyright. It is their property and it is their right to protect it. Did they take a picture in a public place? Yup. That’s legal. Posting online is just free advertising and hype. We live for the hype. But is it legal for them to recognize the content, and ask for the person who posted it to take it down? Damn right it is.
For those of you who have been following our site for a while, Paramount had our site TAKEN DOWN, for not complying with a request. We had posted a picture on set, and they asked us to remove it, which we did – but the same request was sent to our host, who shut us down despite our compliance.
The online reaction was HUGE. Digg was on fire with the article about Paramount shutting us down. In the end of things, Paramount admitted the error and the Vice President at the time called to apologize for the incident.
You would think we would be first in line to defend Ben Brown who was doing exactly what this fanboy would have done. But Paramount isn’t WRONG in their actions here. (They made an error taking us down even though we complied with the request – but the request is legal) We may not agree that they should snuff this free publicity, but it is still their right to do so.
Even after the offense we suffered, we still kept the image off our site. The post was removed and we complied, because despite our feelings on the free publicity we were providing – it is their legal right.
For those of you interested, one of Ben’s co-workers also shot some footage, and that is mysteriously still online.
The footage has been there for a while now, showing a shot of a Smart Car getting tossed (rumoured to be one of the upgraded Twins snubbing the compact car)
