Lying over Key handshake fail clip?

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, October 27th, 2011 - 22 comments
Categories: john key, sport, youtube - Tags: , ,

John Key’s try-hard failed handshake at the RWC has gone viral. What looked like a minor footnote to the affair came out last night, when it was reported that YouTube had taken down the clip at the request of the IRB. Not really worth a post. But today, events have taken a strange new turn:

Key’s botched handshake clip taken off YouTube

YouTube has mysteriously taken down a popular video clip of Prime Minister John Key’s awkward three-way handshake with victorious All Black captain Richie McCaw and International Rugby Board chairman Bernard Lapasset.

The clip … had been viewed more than 20,000 times by Tuesday morning. But it was no longer available early yesterday, with a message saying: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by International Rugby Board.”

But IRB spokesman Dominic Rumbles said the clip had not been taken down at the IRB’s request. … “There would be no reason for us to ask for it to be taken down.” …

Mr Key yesterday said he was surprised the clip had been removed. “They should leave it up there as far as I’m concerned, I’m not bothered by it.”

Is someone lying here? YouTube says it was an IRB request, the IRB says no. (Shades of Key making claims about the S&P downgrade, S&P said no). Does the IRB left hand not know what its right hand is doing, or did someone contact YouTube impersonating the IRB? Curious.

22 comments on “Lying over Key handshake fail clip? ”

  1. Jimmy 1

    More likely that a third party believes that the clip makes Key looks bad, so requested it be removed under the false pretense of being from the IRB.

    In a similar vein, someone might request the removal or the Phil Goff is “So Ronery” clip doing the rounds on the right wing blogs at the moment due to copyright infringement of Labour’s ad.

    • James Rawiri Meager 1.1

      This one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_RbCDhOx4U ?

      Probably just a matter of time depending which copyright laws are applied – the US has much more generous provisions on fair use and satire when it comes to copyright (there’s also an argument that political party advertisements are in the public domain and non-commercial use is allowed). If you were trying to get it pulled, I reckon you’d have better luck going after the use of the music instead.

      You’d have to be pretty uptight to demand a parody is removed due to copyright, and it tends to only make things worse (eg Striesand effect – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect). Plus, it spoils the fun for both sides – look at all the creative alteration of National’s Stop Go advertisements already, and their Brighter Future billboards.

      If anything, parodies tend to increase viewership of the original anyway (people like to see what’s actually being parodied), and that particular parody almost makes you sympathise with Goff rather than want to mock him!

  2. toad 2

    Smells of McCully.

  3. Scotty 3

    “Whatever” Fourteen tear old girl on hearing the RWC handshake embarrassment had gone viral.
    Nah Prime Minister John Key again demonstrating his imperial command of the english language..

  4. her 4

    It’s still there. John Key’s Handshake Fail http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWjuiAPkEAw

    Someone should ask the herald if they’ve heard of google.

    If you search for john key at youtube the auto suggest suggests trotie.

    Made me laugh twice today.

  5. Tim 5

    I’m a Labour supporter and I like the “So Ronery” clip. If they had stopped it before the big banner falls down promoting Labour’s core message it would have been a clever advert for the right. But they way they’ve done it means that lots of people are going to see Labour’s core message about Asset Sales.

    • Hanswurst 5.1

      I don’t see what’s remotely clever about it. It looks more like the sort of thing that you rustle up in five minutes when you can’t come up with anything that’s *actually* funny.

      • Draco T Bastard 5.1.1

        It would probably mean more if you’d seen the film and it wasn’t funny then either. Actually, the whole film wasn’t funny.

        • Hanswurst 5.1.1.1

          I have seen the film. That is part of the reason why I think that it’s something rustled up in five minutes because they couldn’t come up with something *actually* funny. It’s a lot easier to come up with things if they’ve been done before.

          • Draco T Bastard 5.1.1.1.1

            I don’t think it took 5 minutes. I think it took quite a bit of planning to get the “expert” to say that Phil looked lonely, then to edit the song to the ad and then to get it to whaleoil so he could publish it.

            As for it being funny – well, the RWNJs (who are also the only people I know who found the film funny) will find it so and as that’s the target audience.

            BTW, sorry for my incorrect assumption there.

            • Hanswurst 5.1.1.1.1.1

              No problem. Looking at my comment, I suppose it’s easy to make that assumption. I agree that it will make RWNJs giggle, but that says nothing at all about how funny it is, since RWNJs seem to be largely of the opinion that anything parodying Labour is intrinsically funny.

  6. randal 6

    the national party doesnt do funny.
    stealing the states assets is a deadly serious business.

  7. Daveo 7

    More like the work of Francis Till and Jason Ede. Remember this? http://www.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/free_speech.gif

  8. Very suspicious – I hope we can get to the bottom of who’s actually pulled it.
    Presumably YouTube would only listen to the influential when it came to censoring something so innocuous

    • Ari 8.1

      Actually, that’s not really right. This highlights the problems with YouTube more than with the National Party:

      YouTube pretty much takes down ANY video that ANYONE complains about being a copyright violation, so long as it conceivably could be. (eg: You’re using background music. Sometimes people who are using LICENSED background music have been taken down with that excuse) It’s often used at the grassroots level by right-wingers to take down all sorts of videos that promote progressivism or feminism or atheism or just embarrass them. It’s a terrible policy and needs to change- at the very least, YouTube should be junking mails not from the domains of actual copyright holders, or even better, demanding documentation.

  9. alex 9

    Here’s the animated GIF 😉

    http://twitpic.com/75wosl

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