Screen-Shot-2016-11-02-at-9.47.42-AM.png

The Case of the Vanishing Site C Video

Last week DeSmog Canada published a video about the Site C dam on Facebook that — after generating nearly 120,000 views in 36 hours — was suddenly removed due to a complaint lodged by True North Entertainment, a B.C. government contractor.

The video, Cutting Through the Spin on the Site C Dam, featured an interview with Harry Swain, chair of the provincial-federal panel responsible for reviewing the controversial hydro dam.

Swain, a high-profile critic of Site C, explained why he thinks it’s a mistake to build the dam and how the B.C. government has changed its story over the years to justify the $9-billion project, the most expensive public infrastructure project in the province’s history.

The five-minute video featured footage almost exclusively filmed by DeSmog Canada but also included some small selections of b-roll footage from the Province of B.C.’s YouTube page.

More than 3,300 people had shared the video on Facebook as of Thursday night but come Friday morning, the video had vanished from every single page it previously appeared on.

A notification from Facebook simply stated the video was removed due to a copyright infringement complaint. The only recourse available was to discuss the matter with Kyle Koch, president and creative director for True North Entertainment, the individual who filed the complaint.

In a conversation with DeSmog Canada, Koch refused to specifically identify what footage he believed violated intellectual property rights.

Kyle Koch

The vast majority of the media created for the Province of B.C. is licensed under Creative Commons terms, ensuring photos and video paid for with provincial tax-dollars are available for public use with attribution.

But Koch said the Site C video drew from material his company licensed to the province under a one-time use only licence.

“The bottom line is they didn’t have a big budget. We gave them some opportunity to have some elements from our library,” Koch said.

Although he wouldn’t specify, it appears the footage Koch was referring to originated in a Government of B.C. promotional video for “Clean LNG.”

The video, which appeared on the province’s YouTube page is licensed under a “Standard YouTube Licence,” meaning it cannot be re-used. DeSmog Canada erred in drawing from that video.

Today we are releasing a revised version of the Site C film without the b-roll from that particular video.

The BC Liberals and Premier Christy Clark have come under criticism recently for hefty promotional budgets used to advertise government’s activities, policies and projects.

DeSmog Canada has learned that $1,641,253 in taxpayers dollars have been paid to True North Media for services provided to the government since 2006.

In this instance, the province produced tax-dollar-funded promotional material that can not be repurposed in other (even non-profit) media productions, but that is not necessarily the standard for governments.

The United States government, for example, doesn’t hold copyright over any material it produces.

All of this raises the question: if content is produced with government messaging, promoted on their channels and paid for with public dollars, shouldn’t the government hold copyright and make it available to the public who paid for it?

Threats to our environment are often hidden from public view.
So we’ve embarked on a little experiment at The Narwhal: letting our investigative journalists loose to file as many freedom of information requests as their hearts desire.

They’ve filed more than 300 requests this year — and unearthed a veritable mountain of government documents to share with readers across Canada.

But the reality is this kind of digging takes lots of time and no small amount of money.

As many newsrooms cut staff, The Narwhal has doubled down on hiring reporters to do hard-hitting journalism — and we do it all as an independent, non-profit news organization that doesn’t run any advertising.

Will you join the growing chorus of readers who have stepped up to hold the powerful accountable?
Threats to our environment are often hidden from public view.
So we’ve embarked on a little experiment at The Narwhal: letting our investigative journalists loose to file as many freedom of information requests as their hearts desire.

They’ve filed more than 300 requests this year — and unearthed a veritable mountain of government documents to share with readers across Canada.

But the reality is this kind of digging takes lots of time and no small amount of money.

As many newsrooms cut staff, The Narwhal has doubled down on hiring reporters to do hard-hitting journalism — and we do it all as an independent, non-profit news organization that doesn’t run any advertising.

Will you join the growing chorus of readers who have stepped up to hold the powerful accountable?

The unlikely love story of an endangered tree and the little bird who eats its seeds

When a little gray bird with black wings flies into a bushy tree on the edge of a steep mountain slope, ecologist Alana Clason scrambles...

Continue reading

Recent Posts

Readers like you make The Narwhal’s independent journalism possible. And until Dec. 31, every dollar you donate will be matched!
Donate today and your gift will be matched!
Investigative reporting like The Narwhal’s is blocked on Facebook and Instagram. One way to make sure you still get the facts? Sign up for our free newsletter.
Printed text saying: "Good news is hard to find," with each word disappearing one by one
Investigative reporting like The Narwhal’s is blocked on Facebook and Instagram. One way to make sure you still get the facts? Sign up for our free newsletter.
Until midnight on Dec. 31, every dollar you give to The Narwhal will be matched by a generous group of donors! There’s no time like the present to voice your support for our independent journalism.
Will you make double the difference?
Until midnight on Dec. 31, every dollar you give to The Narwhal will be matched by a generous group of donors! There’s no time like the present to voice your support for our independent journalism.
Will you make double the difference?