San Diego Comic-Con@Home video panel thwarted by YouTube's copyright algorithms

While the world's on lockdown thanks to COVID-19, the organizers behind San Diego Comic-Con opted to hold an online convention, so at least the entertainment industry could continue to enjoy that annual mid-July PR boost. Things began to awry, however, during the Star Trek panel, which featured a table read by the cast of Star Trek: Discovery. As Deadline reports:

About 15 minutes into the sprawling offering from the ever expanding Trekverse everything seemed to shut down on Comic-Con's YouTube site. As Sonequa Martin-Green and others from the cast of Star Trek: Discovery were delivering a table read of their Season 2 finale 'Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2,' the prerecorded stream suddenly said "video unavailable."

The outage of sort lasted about 20 minutes before the dramatic and footage augmented panel picked up again at 10:35 PM PST.

According to a spokesperson from CBS All Access, the mysterious 20-minute gap only affected viewers who joined the panel after it started. They received an error message that read, "The video contains content from CBS CID, who has blocked it on copyright grounds." Oops.

Luckily, the blackout is absent from the archival video of the event on YouTube. But it's still an embarrassing display for overly-aggressive algorithmic content control.

'Star Trek' At Comic-Con@Home Panel Goes Dark For Short Spell Over CBS Copyright Glitch [Dominic Patten / Deadline]

Image: Chris Favero / Flickr (CC 2.0)