14 DAY TRIAL // YouTube has a lot of problems on its hands because of the copyright infringement that is being forced against by the protected content its users upload. It's always been kind of a ballet of jumping over lawsuits and pivoting around big bucks decisions. The bad part with it all is that they mean almost nothing in comparison to, say, a country banning the site and when the respective country is the size of China, it is all the worst.
The China story that I mentioned is seeing a copycat rerun in Turkey, where a court has yet again blocked the access to YouTube due to some of the videos uploaded that allegedly insult Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a very important historical figure. The order was issued on the 17th of January and it was based on another decision, dating a while ago, that has declared insults to the founding father of the country as being illegal.
The last time this happened was in March 2007 when the dispute between Google's video sharing service and the court order issued was settled as YouTube proved that the videos that were reported as being offensive to Ataturk were removed.
Thus, Turkey has joined the ranks of countries that have serious free expression problems, alongside Thailand, Morocco and, as I mentioned before, China. Well seen figures throughout the world, like Orhan Pamuk, the writer who won the Nobel for Literature with his book "My Name Is Red", were tried in close connection to the issue of insulting their country.
The good news is that a Google official said that he was hoping that the ban would be lifted quickly, so steps are being made to solve this. The bad news is that there is another case of breaking the freedom of expression basic rights that also advertise the respective videos in a way that nobody could have ever dreamed of.