Quack!
That's the sound of an offended Oregon Duck football fan, who's turned off by the Rose Bowl buzz kill inflicted by the university when it demanded that a great student-made video be removed from the Internets.
Of course, this heavy-handed attempt at censorship didn't succeed. I just watched the video on the Oregonian web site, where sports columnist Ken Goe correctly says that the University of Oregon got it all wrong.
Goe tells the sad story of how this video got squashed because -- horror of horrors! -- the Oregon Duck mascot appears briefly in various scenes.
It wasn't until later Tuesday morning that Angie Sit, Oregon's assistant athletic director for marketing, got involved. Sit's message to the guys was sharp and unequivocal: edit The Duck out of the video, or take down the video, or else. They had until 5 p.m.
They appealed, pointing out that putting together their production had taken an entire weekend. Removing The Duck involved not only editing, but remixing and possibly reshooting. And, they are students, after all. They do have classes.
The appeal got nowhere...So, the guys reluctantly shut down the YouTube video Tuesday night.
If you want to tell Angie Sit how you feel about her heavy-handed action against some wondrously creative and enthusiastic U of O students (and I hope you do) here's her email address: [email protected]
Angie, I made this screenshot of a frame from the video.
I must be breaking all sorts of Disney copyright law also. And confusing people who think my blog is an official U of O athletic department web site.
I await a visit from your lawyers. So does my dog, who also is a Duck football fan.
(Tell the lawyers to bring a chew stick if they want to get in our door. And better legal arguments than you told Ken Goe.)
I wrote a nice, long e-mail to Angie basically telling her to get off of her negative soapbox and join in the positive light that this video sheds on the University, the Pac-10, and sports, in general.
Posted by: Jenna Getchell | November 19, 2009 at 03:51 PM
THANK YOU for speaking for the rest of us. This video is entirely good and positive and it's crummy that this one paranoid person can prevent it from being shown in its rightful places. Let's hope something good happens and the I Love My Ducks can be on the big screen at Autzen on December 3!!
Posted by: KYoder | November 21, 2009 at 01:06 PM
Yeah DUCKS!!!!!!!
Posted by: KYoder | November 21, 2009 at 09:08 PM
If the bean counter wishes to remove the video she has to remove about 3,640 results from youtube. This number is from about 5 minutes ago.
Posted by: doug | December 13, 2009 at 09:28 AM