Radio Station Fights Criticism With Copyright Claim

Boing Boing has an interesting story on how the current copyright laws are open to misuse - in this case to defend some rather crass scaremongering by an apparently ill-informed radio host.

LBC used to be a well-respected London based news radio station back in the seventies and eighties, even in to the nineties (although having moved out of London by this time I can't vouch for that) however after losing its licence in one of the auctions that usually brings worse service to the independent broadcasting sector, the station disappeared.

The licence winner performed so badly that they ended up having to buy the LBC branding in an attempt to relaunch and win back some of its lost market share.

This new LBC is the radio station in question in this sad story. One of its hosts was guilty of spouting a large chunk of nonsense about chilhood vaccinations and was rightly pulled up on the blog of Guardian science contributor Dr Ben Goldacre, who posted the whole 44 min segment to his blog by way of background information and also so he couldn't be accused of 'context' errors.

Rather than hold its hands up and apologise for poor journalism standards and broadcasting misleading information LBC has hit Goldacre with a copyright infringement and takedown notice.

That sucks and LBC should be taken to task for both failings. I believe that OFCOM is the correct destination for such a complaint if you live in the London area and feel sufficiently outraged. Alternatively, write to the station informing them that you will be taking your ears elsewhere and let them know why.

The original Boing Boing story is here