A pro-Scottish independence blogger has criticised the BBC after this YouTube was hit with copyright strikes and taken down following the claims that it contained copyrighted material.

YouTube axed the channel on the Wings Over Scotland after the BBC pinpointed 13 videos that had been uploaded to the channel. The broadcaster said it regularly takes action to protect its copyright.

Owner of the Wings Over Scotland channel, Stuart Campbell states that the videos should have not been taken down. He argued they are covered by “fair dealing” exceptions to copyright law, which allowed material to be used for the purposes of “criticism, review and reporting current events”.

The fair dealing rules however only allow a “reasonable and necessary” selection of someone else’s work to be used.

They will never take our freedom

Talking to BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, Campbell said that 13 videos among the “hundreds” posted onto his YouTube channel before it just “vanished” without a prior warning.

Campbell said the takedown notice by the BBC had been signed by a “specialist intellectual lawyer at the BBC’s legal department in London”.

He continued to say that he would of “given consideration” to remove the videos in question if he had been approached in order to prevent his entire channel being taken down.

According to Campbell, Scottish Labour councillor Scott Arthur received “some kind of special treatment” as he was allowed to keep his channel active as long as the videos contested by the BBC were made private.

In a statement by the BBC, they said it takes action to protect its copyright “whenever we receive complaints about large quantities of our material being posted or used with permission”.

The channel has since been restored, and the strikes have resulted in some publicity too. 

We're back (for now), baby. https://t.co/vSEwNQTI8h

— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) August 2, 2018