I think I uncovered an important development in the "Knocking"/Youtube controversy. A few days ago I was reviewing the Knocking excerpts on Youtube and paying attention to their viewer stats and whether they allowed comments. None of the videos I saw were allowing comments. There were several videos posted by knockingdocumentary. Independent Lens also had a short excerpt and PBS had what what appeared to be the same clip posted. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I seem to recall that one of the short clips form either PBS or Independent Lens had over 160,000 views and that the other also had high viewer stats. I don't believe either were allowing comments.
I checked the videos again today. Here are the links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5DRgpQmoqE 360 views, 9 comments, posted by Independent Lens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4agnPkzM01M 4042 views, 27 comments, posted by PBS
I wish I better understood how Youtube works. It appears they replaced old comments. The viewer stats went way down, but I don't know if these videos have the same links as before. It almost looks like they reset them to an earlier date. They do appear to be further down in the search results.
The videos posted by knockingdocumentary appear unchanged and are still not allowing comments.
There are a lot of questions. I invite your thoughts. I wonder if PBS and Independent Lens observed the controversy about Knocking's legal threats and decided it was a bad idea to not allow comments on a controversial film that is accused of being very biased. If so, I commend them. I think they made the right decision. Knockingdirector has the right to not allow comments. However, it speaks very poorly for their objectivity and their willingness to allow the public to hear all the facts.
I don't recommend flooding these videos with comments, because that will only increase their popularity, but it would be good to make sure that critical opinions are properly represented.
I noticed something else. On another thread, Knocking responded to an email by saying they don't approve of anyone using their footage without permission and that they send cease and desist orders to both JWs and nonJWs. I found a Youtube user named Paulayahoo. She appears to be a Jehovah's Witness and has numerous proJW videos on her channel, including these videos that are copied from the Knocking documentary or special features.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTmf-3S28rw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnPQsZE_GBU
These are not three second fair use clips for the purpose of commentary or criticism. They are several minutes long without commentary. It might be good for some of us to email the Knocking directors and find out if this user has permission to use these clips. Their email address is at this link. http://www.knocking.org/getinfo.lasso (I'm sorry, but I have reasons to not correspond with them at this time.) If they didn't grant permission, it would be only fair for them to send that user a cease and desist notice. That is supposedly their policy. If they granted permission, it makes them look bad for allowing them this extensive use of copyrighted material while issuing legal threats against a critic who used three seconds of footage in a manner that may be fair use. It might be their right to have this contradictory stand, but, once again, it would speak poorly for their fairness.