Anshe Chung video back on YouTube

Last week, following a Digital Millenium Copyright Act complaint demanding that YouTube take down a video in which Second Life land baroness Anshe Chung is seen being virtually attacked by a parade of flying penises, the popular video-hosting service removed it.

The DMCA claim was based on what Anshe Chung Studios claimed was copyright infringement. The idea was that images of her avatar were used without her permission.

And despite what legal experts said was an obvious case of fair use of the video--since it came from a public interview that Chung, the avatar of Chinese businesswoman Ailin Graef, gave CNET News.com in the CNET Second Life theater--YouTube has not yet put it back online.

The Sydney Morning Herald and the tech culture blog Boing Boing have both been contacted by Anshe Chung Studios with stern requests to take down pictures of the attack.

Ah, but YouTube's users don't seem to want to wait for the service to act. Instead, they've taken matters into their own hands and have posted at least two new versions of the video themselves.

This is in addition to at least one version of the video that is hosted by Google Video. Google also owns YouTube.

One of the videos is accompanied by a commentary by the poster, who is known as classemurasame. It says, "Sorry, Anshe, silence is not something you can buy."

Another version of the video comes with commentary by its poster, Luvan, who wrote, "I am sure if this gets popular it will be taken down, which is absolute (nonsense) since this is in no way a violation of the DMCA."

YouTube has said it has no comment on the matter. But in the past, the company has sometimes required separate DMCA complaints for each individual case of questionable content.