After videos went viral of the Nationwide crash that took place at Daytona International Speedway, NASCAR began blocking content posted online by fans that they found to be unfit. For many, this raised the question of who owns the rights to the media that we record on our personal devices? NASCAR Media Group handles all of the sanctioning bodies intellectual property and according to the fine print that comes along with each race ticket, they have the right to own the copyright.
I agree that NASCAR would have the right to step in, if the content posted was being used for commercial purposes, but I don’t think they should have say over the experiences we simply choose to share. In this particular instance, NASCAR claims that it wasn’t a matter of legality, but out of respect for their fans and the video in question was later reposted. In a statement, YouTube conveyed, “Our partners and users do not have the right to take down videos from YouTube unless they contain content which is copyright infringing, which is why we have reinstated the videos.”
In a world that is shifting from traditional to online marketing, many companies are relying on social media as a way to engage their fans in addition to keeping them up to date on breaking news. NASCAR was quick to react and remove footage of the wreck, but dropped the ball when it came to responding to the crisis at hand in a timely manner – a move being referred to as a social media fail.
Do you think it should be up to a sanctioning body to determine what personal photos and videos you can/can’t share?
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