15-year-old Finnish student fined for YouTube video of teacher
By Ruben Francia
Uploading video clips on social-networking sites like YouTube could be fun but kids need to be extra careful as it could land them in court.
Toni Vesikko, 15-year-old Finnish student learned that the hard way after a court ruled against him in a libel case for posting a video clip on YouTube of his teacher.
According to AP, Vesikko must fork over $4,120 for a clip that features his teacher singing karaoke at a school party that he tagged “Karaoke of the mental hospital,” named the teacher and said she was “a lunatic singing at the karaoke of the mental hospital.”
The Nurmes District Court ruled that Vesikko’s action caused “harm and suffering”. He was fined $120 for uploading the video and also ordered to pay $1,000 damages and $3,000 in court costs.
The video, taken April 30 was a prank not meant to hurt, Vesikiko said. It was viewed more than 600 times before Vesikko took it off YouTube within two weeks on the orders of his school principal.
But the court found Vesikko’s actions “falsified facts” about the institution and the teacher’s mental state libelous and caused his teacher to suffer anxiety, depression and insomnia.
The teacher originally asked the court for $2,728 in damages but the court has ordered to reduce the damages because the defendant was under 18 years of age and had removed the clip from YouTube at the request of the school’s principal.
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August 25th, 2007
It seems to me that there is something wrong when a (presumably adult) teacher takes offence at the immature actions of a child. If he or she cannot deal with this sort of thing in a more understanding way then they should probably not be around children… at least not until they gain a little more maturity. I shudder to think how they would deal with younger childeren. I also question the developmental level of a judge who does not recognize this as childs play. Shame on the “adults” in this situation.
August 26th, 2007
True, but kids need to know the price for their immaturity. Imagine a kid like this never being corrected for humiliating his teacher, and does this to his future boss. I doubt he will get away with it by blaming his adults for not teaching him. If a kid made fun of a teacher in class, the teacher would correct it there and ask for an apology. But the student made fun of the teacher on the internet. Taking the kid to court seems an adequate response, since the humiliation was public and on a grand scale when it was viewed by 600+ people. The teacher may not be taken seriously by future students because of her student’s stunt, and so she becomes less effective as a educator.
August 26th, 2007
Ai, of the 600 viewers, how many do you think were in the Netherlands? Such a huge fine for such a small thing is ridiculous… the teacher could’ve just told the student to remove the video.
The teacher should be fired…