Rallye de France goes illegal

Remember when we were told to look for TV coverage of WRC events on Youtube? By that I assume we were instructed to search for pirate rips, uploaded by fans all across the globe. Everyone was fine with it, and for a while it was indeed the only way for certain countries and regions to see WRC reports made by official TV teams. In the meantime we, and by we I mean most of the countries in Europe at least, got WRC on (hopefully!) free TV channels, but the Youtube phenomenon still remains.

Even though it’s been around for quite a while, Internet is still treated as a semi-serious platform, so it was only logical that we demanded WRC to be shown on TV at least. It’s a fine art finding a balance between catering to fans (Internet) and as wide as possible audience (and investors who still see TV above all else). First steps in good direction are being taken though, and some of the TV footage is coming to Internet as well, and legally.

But what happens when official website of one of the WRC events praises it’s own and partners’ TV achievements, and illustrates that with a Youtube video that is actually an illegal rip from pay TV channel? A lot of head scratching, for sure. According to Redditor ATTENTIO, Rally de France used his (illegal) upload to illustrate their story about how advanced their 2012 TV coverage was (and indeed it was, but the irony is quite obvious).

There is still plenty to do in merger of WRC and TV.