BBC bosses have backed down in their YouTube fight with pro-independence blog Wings Over Scotland.
Stuart Campbell, who edits Wings, had his account on the video sharing site suspended on Saturday after the Beeb’s lawyers complained about copyright infringement.
His channel featured hundreds of broadcasts, many of which contained clips taken from the corporation’s news and current affairs output, which the blogger insisted was covered by fair use exemptions to copyright law. Auntie’s lawyers also complained about Peter Curran, a fellow independence supporting commentator, who also had his YouTube account taken offline.
READ MORE: SNP demand answers on BBC pro-independence censorship
On BBC Radio Scotland’s John Beattie show on Thursday afternoon, Ian Small the head of public policy for BBC Scotland, announced that the corporation were to climb down.
He told the host: “We’ve been speaking to BBC colleagues in BBC legal in London over the last few days and a letter is going out this very afternoon to Mr Campbell to indicate that the BBC is undertaking a review of all of its work in this area relative to, particularly, videos which have political content.”
He added: “We will now be talking to YouTube to ask them to reinstate the videos while this review is undergoing and then we can better understand how well placed the BBC is relative to this kind of material available particularly on social media sites.”
Small insisted the decision was taken entirely on legal and rights grounds and “there was no editorialising at all in any of this”.
Reacting to the decision, Campbell said: “I hope the BBC’s comments mean this ridiculous episode is over, and we can get back to doing what we do best – scrutinising Scottish politics and holding people to account.”
On the Beattie show, Small said the broadcaster was alerted about the possible copyrights violation by Campbell, after someone else had complained about a “Labour councillor who had material on his website”.
He said the BBC issued a notice on that and the councillor “in turn indicated that we had not taken any action relative to the Wings Over Scotland material, and because he alerted us that we necessarily had to take action”.
READ: SNP's full letter to the BBC complaining about Wings YouTube ban
Asked by Beattie if the Edinburgh Labour councillor Scott Arthur was behind the complaint about Wings, Small initially didn’t acknowledge the name, before then saying he believed it was but that he “wasn’t party to that so I couldn’t say definitely that was the case.”
Arthur said it simply wasn’t true to suggest he was in anyway involved in the complaint.
Though he did say that it was accurate that someone had complained about his YouTube channel which also featured many clips of interviews taken from the BBC’s television output.
He told The National: “I want to be clear that I did not complain to the BBC about any YouTube channel.
“I have had a number of discussions with the BBC legal team today, and have demanded that they make it clear I made no complaint about any BBC content on YouTube.
“I hope to hear from them soon.”
He continued: “I feel that the personal abuse Stuart Campbell dishes out on social media lowers the tone of political debate in Scotland, but I respect his right to do so and for 100s of people to share it whilst hiding behind anonymous Twitter accounts.”
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