Image via CrunchBase
While Youtube is defending itself from Viacom, by saying that it:...has become a metaphor for the democratizing power of the Internet and information. YouTube gives unknown performers, filmmakers, and artists new ways to promote their work to a global audience and rise to worldwide fame;
So much for helping unknown artists/performers in promoting their work as they took down Merton's Chatroulette video. According to Mashable, Youtube didn't take down the vid because it violated copyrights, but rather that the people in the video didn't know they were going to be posted in Youtube. My question here is why did they go to Chatroulette if they DIDN'T want to be seen online. The whole reason for the site is for them to be seen.
Here's what Merton's comment on what happened as he uploaded a new version of the same video:
This is a new, edited version of the original Video #1. I had to make some changes in order for YouTube to be happy with it.
My apologies to all of the subscribers for being summoned here just to see a repeat post, but there was no way around it.
For the record, the original video had 4,238,658 Views. At the time of its demise, it was the Top-Rated YouTube Video of All Time. No shit.
Here's the new, and edited version uploaded by Merton:
Weird, and I thought Google was fighting against censorship...
Merton's Youtube Channel