Osim oders YouTube to take down its iGallop Ad

On Wednesday, I received a DMCA notice from YouTube saying that one of the videos that I uploaded has been removed because of copyright infringement:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by OSIM International Ltd claiming that this material is infringing:

iGallop TV Ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svYtD983qts

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.

Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

I originally uploaded the ad to accompany this post I did on iGallop. Actually, this is the second time I've received a DMCA notice from YouTube. The first was for a short clip of ESPN Sportscenter. Remember kids, do not upload copyright content ok.

Now back to some serious thoughts. I can't recall how many people have viewed the iGallop ad that I uploaded to YouTube but I think it has to be more than 40,000 people. It is definitely the most popular of all the videos that I uploaded.

I'm a firm believer of copyright laws. For example, I believe that when a TV show or a movie is being made available online illegally, the owners of the copyright should do all they can to make sure that the videos are taken down from the hosting site and they should also take legal action if necessary.

But I do think that companies should relax a bit when it comes to protecting their copyright. If I'm a marketeer for Osim, I would have been a fool to take down the ad on YouTube just because it violates my copyright. The ad is a hit. Why force someone to take it down since it has generated free advertising and thousands of eyeballs for your product? An ad is effective only when there are more people viewing it. More people viewing the ad means the more products you are likely to sell. What Osim did just doesn't make sense. It's stupid. Ah, but what do I know? I'm just a blogger.

Update: According to this picture taken from this post by Ben, the Osim ad that I uploaded was viewed more than 141,000 times, not 40,000 as originally stated above.

Update: Osim may have forced YouTube to take down this ad but you can still view the ad uploaded by others on YouTube and other popular video sharing sites.