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A FINE GAEL TD’s popular election campaign video, paying homage to the Back to the Future trilogy, has been removed from YouTube over a copyright dispute.
Martin Heydon said he will now seek legal advice after the Universal film studio objected to his use of music which is similar to that featured in the popular 80s films.
The Kildare South TD produced one of the slickest videos to emerge during last month’s election in which he and ’Doc Brown’, played by local Fine Gael councillor Darren Scully, travel around the constituency seeking votes.
The video, entitled ‘Secure Your Future’, attempted to highlight Heydon’s work around his Kildare South constituency over the last five years.
The video proved to be immensely popular with some 30,000 hits on YouTube before it was taken down and over 47,000 views on Facebook.
Heydon estimates that with stories being written about it on various news sites, both in Ireland and internationally, the video was viewed over 100,000 times.
“Someone who works in advertising had been in touch to say that if you were to buy that kind of coverage it would cost around €60,000, whereas the video cost around €345,” Heydon, who was re-elected last month, claimed.
However, Heydon was informed in an email from YouTube ten days ago that the video has been blocked in some countries, including Ireland, because it contains copyrighted content.
Universal Motion Pictures International asserted that the video contains a musical composition that it owns the copyright to.
“Universal claim that I am in breach, but we actually changed the music. We went to great lengths to make sure it was different… we purposely didn’t go with the original soundtrack,” he said.
Heydon insisted he does not believe he is in breach of copyright and said he intends to seek legal advice before deciding whether to put the video back up on YouTube.
Thankfully for fans of Back to the Future and bad acting, the video is still available to watch on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/martinheydonfg/videos/1114289211954632/
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Profit,Profit and even more profit and on the other side……..Austerity, withdrawal of services,”restructuring” water tax etc. Anybody else see that Laissez-faire does not work for anybody except for the multinationals. The filter down policies are a fantasy, wealth and money is traveling only in one direction!
Maybe if people were more concerned with making profit than sitting on the dole we wouldn’t have so many people whining about austerity.
Austerity is hitting everybody especially those who are honest taxpayers who are hit even harder than those who are unfortunate enough to have to depend on the state for survival.
Get off the dole and do a bit of work then Fantastic!
So whats your answer to the problem you describe,god forbid we should inovate and build up our own multinational companies instead of relying on tax breaks to entice other countries talent to create jobs and employment here,but that would take dedication hard work and a belief in our own ability, are we up for it,highly unlikely judging by the rush for exits when the going gets tough.
I can read this article and appreciate it for all that it is, but President Higgins’ address last week in Chicago in which he stated that ” society needs to measure prosperity” by differing methods strikes more resonance with me.
What’s that thing they have in Bhutan (I think?) they have a “happiness index” or some such?
Budget cuts for 2013 : 4 Billion Euro
Cost to the exchequer of 12.5% corporation tax NOT being enforced: 4 Billion Euro
Do the math.
It would be interesting to see what % corporation tax each of the 10 paid on their profits.
Ireland inc. the best little country in the world to do business. Slave labour aplenty and taxes are only for the little people. We’ll send any amount of people to the poorhouse to protect your profits. Rob us blind, but don’t forget your TV licence or your billionaire ass is going to jail.
Hear hear……… tell it straight Jammin
Why not make it 25% and make a few quid
The majority of top companies are….not Irish. Neo liberal agenda in full swing. Ireland like a third world country being drained by multinationals.
So much for entrepreneur culture here. A complete myth
Those “not Irish” companies employee a hell of allot of full blooded Irish people, who spend their hard earned money on Irish food and products, putting meals on Irish plates and clothes on Irish peoples backs, whilst also keeping people off the Irish doll queues!
To build an entrepreneur culture, you need to have allot of entrepreneurs, all with great ideas which can be developed into something enormous, otherwise it wont make even a dent in the Irish economy.
Comparing Ireland to a third world country is ridiculously idiotic, to put it mildly!
You mean businesses employ and pay people? We know that. A bit of an idiotic comment if you don’t mind me saying. Maybe you might like to take a look at the real issues here?
How are Ryanair not included?
Or Intel?
Because they don’t really employ anyone in Ireland. Very few staff, all the rest are “contractors” employed by outside agencies. Really, as a company Ryan Air contribute very little to the Irish economy.
I assume you are joking @Larry. how many tens of millions of people do Ryanair bring here every year. Im sure their Vat bill alone is huge.
How does CRH manage to stay at the top? Their IT department is a joke. My bf worked there for a year, worst job he ever had (same for a friend who worked in their accounting dept).
They make loads of money, thats why they’re there.
Dell is in the top 10? An awful kip of a place to work. Soul destroying, global multinational, bureaucratic hell hole
What about Ryanair ? They would have got my vote and they are Irish too !
Got a shock when I read this story. First thing I saw was the add banner for labour and I thought to myself
“Jaysus Gilmore must be a great fella to work for”
Didn’t see Irish startup EnergyElephant on the list there…
It’s gearing up competition against Nest which was recently acquired by Google for $3.2 Billion.
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