WHAT’S T.D. JAKES HIDING? (PART I)


“Canceled by T.D. Jakes”

By Akin Ojumu

It was two weeks ago that I posted on the African Plume YouTube channel a video clip of a sermon by Bishop T.D. Jakes. In the portion of the sermon titled, “Pull it Down,” that was posted, the grey-beard Bishop dishes out warning of divine retribution that would be visited upon anyone out there who dares to say anything bad about him.

Sanctimoniously draped in the saintly robe of “touch not my anointed,” T.D. Jakes remonstrates:

“We don’t have enough respect for God's anointed. When God anoints a person, no matter what they do, be careful about putting your mouth on them because they belong to God. If there’s any bringing down to be done God will bring them down not you. Because if you touch what God has appointed you become an enemy not of the person but an enemy of God. Talk to me, somebody!”

What was posted on the African Plume YouTube channel was a mere 34.22 second clip of an 80-minute sermon. The post was an innocuous post that wasn’t accompanied by critical commentary or unflattering editorializing. There was neither a pulling down of T.D. Jakes nor disrespect thrown at him.

In the video clip that was posted on African Plume, no mouth was put on the anointed man of God, and neither was any harm done to him. This was a supposedly Christian sermon given by a supposedly anointed Christian minister shared on a YouTube channel with an audience composed of unregenerate souls.

None of that mattered to Bishop T.D. Jakes, though. The entertainment executive and ministry entrepreneur slapped African Plume with a copyright violation anyway. Yesterday, we received the notification below from YouTube informing us that T.D. Jakes has requested that the video clip be removed. And based on copyright law, YouTube went ahead and complied with TD Jakes’ request.

Hi AFRICAN PLUME,

We received a copyright removal request for your video. Based on applicable copyright law, we removed your video from YouTube:

Video title: TD Jakes: God’s Anointed Cannot Be Questioned No Matter What They Do
Video url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFf-pezbSY8
Content used: Bishop T.D. Jakes “Pull It Down”
Content found during: 0:00:00 – 0:00:35
Removal request issued by: T.D. Jakes Ministries
Contact info: pottershousewe@gmail.com

This means that your video can no longer be viewed on YouTube.

You now have 1 copyright strike. If you get multiple copyright strikes, we’ll have to terminate your channel. To prevent that from happening, please don’t upload videos containing copyrighted content that you aren’t allowed to use.

It’s not a fair fight to pit a Goliath armed with a mighty sword against a David with a sling and a stone. Not so surprisingly, our attempt to counter the copyright violation claim failed, even though the Fair Use exemption permits the use of copyrighted materials without obtaining approval from the copyright owner.

“Federal law allows citizens to reproduce, distribute, or exhibit portions of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes, or video discs under certain circumstances without authorization of the copyright holder. This is called FAIR USE and is allowed for purposes of criticism, news reporting, teaching, and parody which does not constitute an infringement of copyright under 17 USC 107.”

Nonetheless, receiving a copyright strike and having the African Plume YouTube channel terminated is no big deal whatsoever. Unlike those for whom getting kicked out of YouTube constitutes a dagger to the heart of their daily bread, the African Plume YouTube channel is not monetized and has zero financial value. Moreover, the channel barely registers 100 subscribers and the posts don’t get many views or comments anyway.

The question then is why would a wealthy, popular, influential, and internationally recognized man of God, who runs a multimillion-dollar ministry and has a following numbering in the millions go after a tiny, insignificant, non-monetized YouTube channel with less than 130 subscribers to slap it with copyright infringement?

Well, there are a number of reasons why the almighty T.D. Jakes would want to use all the heftiness of his mighty weight to crush a skinny entity like African Plume. We’ll discuss those reasons next time.

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