Thailand’s Government has decided to drop its criminal lawsuit against YouTube and parent company Google, after YouTube agreed to delete videos attacking Thailand’s royal family, in particular King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Thailand’s Information and Communications minister, Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, said that he had received a letter from Google’s vice-president Kent Walker saying that the company did not want to encourage “wrongful acts” or promote “hostile feelings”. The letter is also said to have explained that while it may take some time for the company to identify all offensive videos, it would delete the videos as soon as it spotted them.

Those who have traveled to Thailand would know that whatever you do, you must NOT insult the Thai royal family, especially the King. Generally speaking, the monarchy is very popular in Thailand. It’s also illegal to insult the monarchy in Thailand; those found guilty of this crime face up to 15 years in jail.

At the time of writing YouTube does not appear to have deleted the offensive videos, with this particular video still available, having been viewed 47,096 times. 

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles news operator, Robert Tur, who was the first to take YouTube to court for copyright infringement, has told CNET that while he intends to continue his lawsuit against YouTube, he would consider dropping it if there’s a possibility it could damage other copyright holder’s positions.

Tur sued YouTube in July last year for allowing its users to “share” his famous video of trucker Reginald Denny being beaten up by a mob in the 1992 Los Angeles riot. Viacom and NBC Universal (NBCU) filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief in support Tur’s case when Google tried to have the case dismissed.

Viacom is currently suing YouTube for $1 billion, and there’s a fear that an adverse finding in Tur’s case, could negatively impact Viacom’s much bigger case.

“It’s not about pride or being stubborn,” Tur told CNET. “My heart is in the right place. For copyright holders, this is our livelihood. We lose money when we can’t protect our property. But if they (Viacom) convince me that it’s better that I step aside, that’s what I will do.”

YouTube’s capitulation to the Thai Government is not surprising. After all, YouTube is a platform for having fun, not making political statements. That’s been made very clear now. 

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Entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 11:39 am under YouTube.

Read more entries by John Pospisil.
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