Sony Pictures demanded the removal of the CGI short film Sintel from YouTube due to a claim of copyright infringement. One small problem: they don’t actually own anything in the film.

The removal of the film [was] most likely the result of a faulty DMCA take-down request, but it speaks to a bigger and more troubling issue: corporations today have unprecedented control to wipe independent creators off the Internet.

Corporations today can scrub anything from the Internet on a whim without recourse to the creator, and they aren’t held accountable for their actions.

YouTube has since restored the original version, albeit with – predictably – no explanation, apology, or compensation for downtime.

Oh yeah, also, it’s a great short film.

Film by Blender Foundation.
Quoted text via Cartoon Brew.