SLASH - MOCK-ROCK VIDEO MAN CLOSED DOWN BY YOUTUBE

MOCK-ROCK VIDEO MAN CLOSED DOWN BY YOUTUBE

A Finnish man who mocked rockers SLASH, METALLICA and STEVE VAI by posting poorly dubbed re-recordings over actual footage of them online has been accused of copyright infringement. Guitarist Santeri Ojala had his YouTube.com account closed down following a series of complaints about the videos which poke fun at his musical heroes. Ojala is disappointed the stars he mocked took his homemade recordings seriously - insisting he never meant to cause offence. He says, "In a nutshell, YouTube yanked the plug after someone pushed the 'complain here' button. For some reason, a couple of artists - or rather their management - have complained to YouTube about the videos and had them taken down. "The reasons are unclear to me because I haven't directly heard from the artist that had their videos removed."