OCW videos blocked, then restored, on YouTube
New ‘subscription offerings amendment’ will allow videos to remain ad-free
Last month, over 5,000 OpenCourseWare videos were temporarily blocked to viewers around the world starting June 14, before being restored a few days later.
“It is our understanding that YouTube is in the middle of a worldwide rollout of its subscription services and that they experienced some glitches which inadvertently blocked MIT OCW content,” Krishna Rajagopal, dean for digital learning, wrote in an email to The Tech.
To resolve the issue, a new “subscription offerings amendment” was negotiated by members of MIT and Youtube’s legal teams, which allowed the videos to be fully restored, according to an update posted by OCW June 21.
This agreement ensures that all MIT content, including OCW videos, will remain ad-free and available to all viewers, Rajagopal explained.
Visitors who attempted to access the videos on YouTube while they were blocked saw an error message that said, “This video contains content from MIT. It is not available in your country,” but OCW believes the blockage was actually worldwide, according to the update.
Other channels, including the Blender Foundation, India’s Press Information Office, and England Rugby also experienced similar errors around the same time, a TorrentFreak article reported.