Red Roar In Copyright Trouble

The piss-poor not-really-centre-left Red Roar had an exclusive for its readers, whomsoever they be, earlier this week. “EXCLUSIVE: Corbyn branded EU ‘military Frankenstein’ and trashed second Irish referendum in unearthed footage” declared the headline, as this blog that is not at all connected to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, honestly, continued its assault on the Labour leader.

There was more. “Jeremy Corbyn claimed he does ‘not want to live in a European empire of the 21st century’ at a rally during the 2009 Irish referendum campaign. The film of his speech, exclusively uncovered by The Red Roar, will dampen the spirits of Labour members who are still hopeful that the party will back a People’s Vote”. Good of whoever was writing the post to admit this was about kicking Jezza, then.

And yet more. “The Labour leader attacked the European Union as ‘subservient to NATO’ based on the provisions contained in the Lisbon treaty. Speaking at the meeting organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM) which has links to the Socialist Workers Party … Corbyn also mocked the idea of holding second referendums, joking that he had ‘just got a feeling they’re going to keep on voting until they get the answer they want.’”

Well, on both points, he would be the first to admit he got that one wrong: the Lisbon Treaty makes no provision of “subservience to NATO”, and Ireland obtained guarantees on its sovereignty before the second vote, so the electorate was not merely voting again on the exact same proposition. Still, the Red Roar carries on, focusing on other speakers at the same event and trying to do a little guilt-by-association.

Then, right at the end, the post tells readers “The full recording of Corbyn’s speech produced by Paula Geraghty in 2009 is available here”. That suggests Ms Geraghty had some knowledge of what the Red Roar was doing, perhaps even that she had given her blessing to them using her video footage. But it seems she had not.

We know this because yesterday she Tweeted at the Red Roar “This is my footage that you nicked without permission & without a licence. Please delete the footage now”. She will not be pleased that, as I type (0930 hours on the 6th February), that footage is still there in the Red Roar post. Which suggests they have ignored her request.

That is in the Very Brave category: as Jules Mattsson, whose bio suggests he knows about these kinds of things, put it, “This might prove expensive for some of the outlets nicking it”. It might just. It might prove yet more expensive because the Red Roar has clearly had the opportunity to take down the footage, but has chosen not to .

Here on Zelo Street, we’re looking forward to seeing Ms Geraghty follow through on her request and make matter properly uncomfortable for the Red Roar. Here’s hoping.

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