We happened to be looking at a couple of old articles this morning, and noticed that some of them had blank spaces where videos should be.

We didn’t think much of it at first, because people do sometimes delete old videos or shut down their accounts, but when we checked one of them we discovered it was hosted on the Wings Over Scotland channel.

Or rather, it USED to be, because our YouTube channel isn’t there any more.

This was surprising, because as far as we knew the channel was listed as being in “good standing” with YouTube, meaning it had zero copyright strikes, and we’d had no warning emails about anyone making a copyright claim about any videos, and indeed no notification of the account termination.

And then things got a bit sinister.

Because what appears to have happened is that the BBC has suddenly gone on a crusade against pro-independence sites, launching mass takedown demands that get your whole channel killed before you can respond to them. (Unlike Peter Curran, we got no notification from YouTube so we can’t challenge the claims individually.)

If you go to YouTube’s Copyright Centre, you’ll find yourself at a page which says you can file an appeal if you think your account has been terminated in error:

So we filled in the form and within minutes got this probably-automated reply:

Which directs you straight back to the form you just filled in. But also on the page is a paragraph headed “Copyright terminations”, which says:

“If your account was terminated due to claims of copyright infringement and you believe that the copyright claims against your account are improper or invalid, you may file a DMCA counter-notification. This process is still available for terminated users – access to your account is not necessary.”

If you click the link you get this page:

If you then click on the “Go to your copyright notices” button it tries to connect to your terminated account and fails. But down in the small print below it also says there’s a “free-form” version. Which leads you to here:

…where you’re required to list the URLs of all the videos being complained about.

The page is very clear that “Your counter notification must include specific links to the material that has been removed or disabled. General information about the video, such as a channel URL or username, is not adequate.”

But we have no way of knowing what those links are because we haven’t received any official notification of complaint about them. It appears to be a Kafka-esque loop with no escape. We’ve nonetheless filed an appeal with some guesses, eg this and this.

Our videos are all in full compliance with fair-use laws. You are absolutely allowed to record and reproduce clips for news-reporting and discussion purposes. The BBC, of course, knows that perfectly well.

And the likes of the Scottish Conservatives, for example, appear to still be able to host BBC copyrighted, watermarked footage on their YouTube channel without impediment:

And it’s fine if you’re right-wing and anti-independence like The Spectator.

And obviously it’s fine if you’re K***n H***e attacking Nicola Sturgeon.

So we, and you, can only speculate as to why it appears the BBC exclusively wants to shut down pro-independence sites hosting hundreds of clips of Unionist politicians – and the BBC itself – saying incriminating or embarrassing things. It’s quite the mystery.