NASCAR Tries to Take Down Crash Video, Google Denies Request

University sophomore Tyler Andersen captured a serious crash at a Nascar event on Saturday. The crash saw debris, including a racecar tire, fly into the stands, injuring fans.

The video was immediately uploaded to YouTube. It has quickly amassed more than 600,000 views—but not before Nascar tried to take it down.

 

 

Within minutes of being uploaded, Nascar had the video removed via a copyright claim. But Google, in a bold move that favoured regular users over copyright-clad commercial entities, promptly reinstated the video and declared that Nascar had overstepped its bounds.

While Nascar will obviously disagree, Mathew Ingram argues in PaidContent that Google’s overruling was the right decision.

Canadian startup SendtoNews recently struck a worldwide digital rights agreement with Nascar but was not involved in this case.

Photo: Terry Renna/AP