Nepal Television's official Youtube channel, which had more than 800,000 subscribers and over 8,400 videos was permanently removed for repeated copyright violations. The state-funded broadcaster, which operates under the Public Service Broadcasting Organization, reportedly lost the Youtube channel after Kohalpur (regional) employees uploaded copyrighted Al Jazeera footage. The channel was used by several of the regional arms of Nepal Television, and served as the central location of digitalized Nepal Television programs. According to Mahendra Bista, president of the organization, the deletion of the channel stemmed from the unauthorized upload of three Al Jazeera operated videos by Kohalpur Broadcasting, which had also been let on via television, but were uploaded to Youtube unregulated. Chintamani Baral, the Deputy General Manager of the digital platform, has stated that negotiations occurred between the Kohalpur team and Al Jazeera through designated diplomatic paths (the Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Qatari embassy). No replies from Al Jazeera were received, and the channel was promptly deleted, without reinstatement. Baral also stated that Youtube channels had never been directly communicated with, and maintained that prior warning had not occurred prior to the deletion.
Even though the government announced budget to legally procure news content for sharing, the incident demonstrates internal failures in its processes and licensing. A new channel with the same name & brand has been created since March, but losing the previous account is a lesson in strict compliance with copyright policies on social media.
