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Janet Jackson apologises for over zealous takedowns of live videos

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 23 October 2015

Janet Jackson has apologised that takedown notices submitted by her team against video clips of her live performances on Instagram have resulted in some fans’ accounts being deleted.

In a post on Twitter, she said: “I love and appreciate my fans. I want you to know that I enjoy watching the short video clips of how you are ‘Burning It Up’ at the ‘Unbreakable’ shows. Please keep posting them”.

The problem, she said, was with longer clips or full songs being made available online, continuing: “My team is passionate about protecting the intellectual property we are creating for the tour and possible future projects. It was never their intention, acting on my behalf, to have social media accounts removed. [But] permitting the use of long clips does present a contractual problem for these projects. I hope you understand. I trust the fans will use their short recordings for their own memories and to share on their social media networks of choice”.

Exactly how short is short enough she’s not clear on, though she added that she has “asked my team to change their approach and allow you to engage socially with these videos”.

In a statement issued to Billboard, Instagram said that some of the accounts deleted had been taken down in error: “When we receive a valid report of intellectual property infringement, we’re legally required to remove the reported content and to disable the accounts of repeat infringers. However, in this instance, we have identified a bug that resulted in the removal of accounts that shouldn’t have been removed. We have fixed the bug and are in the process of restoring the impacted accounts”.

So that all turned out alright then. Keep posting those pointless, poor quality, short clips that are of no interest to anyone, please.