04. 02. 2014

Criminal Charges for Removing a Video Clip with Vucic

The Foundation's press release stated that SHARE would file criminal charges for attempted censorship of the Internet, against the responsible persons with the company Matricon, upon whose complaint "politically inappropriate " content was removed from Internet platforms during past weekend.

"Our goal is to determine responsibility for the attempted censorship and restriction of the freedom of exchange of content on the Internet ," the statement said.

The company is the authorized representative for the territory of Serbia of the Bulgarian company KVZ Music, registered in Austria.

SHARE Foundation has announced that it will submit a request for information of public importance to Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) in order to determine the possible role of the public service broadcaster in this case.

Humorous videos with Aleksandar Vucic in the main role during the storm in Feketić have quickly disappeared from the Internet .

Although it was clearly indicated on the videos that the author is RTS, which did not infringe on their copyright in any way, the videos were removed due to alleged copyright infringement, according to SHARE Foundation .

"We can not help but wonder why this situation is specific if one can freely see on YouTube all the episodes of the commercial series 'Ravna gora' or find 15.800 video clips which contain 'RTS News' in their title. However, the possibility to remove material on the basis of protection of copyright has not been used for this content, but for the content in respect of which there was no legal basis", said the statement of the SHARE Foundation.

The statement also said that the Foundation decided to file criminal charges because it considers this case to be a battle for Internet freedom and Internet culture .

"Imagine the Internet without millions of satirical illustrations or remixed videos. Such material represents the core of the Internet culture, and it is our duty to create a legal framework that will allow us to freely express our creativity, critically assesses reality and preserve freedom of expression," the statement said.

SHARE Foundation explained that its intention is to point to the freedom of use of copyrighted works for purposes of parody and satire as a legitimate way of expressing one's opinion.

"Our goal is not to participate in daily political media affairs. For us, the actors are irrelevant. What we want, with the help of analysis and initiating proceedings, is to create a legal framework to protect the Internet culture from any future attempt to censor it, sanction or suppress it, " the statement said.