Dave Thorp

21st November 2015

Strictly Come Dancing 2015 – Week 9 Poll

Strictly was at Blackpool this week which could make for an unpredictable spoiler time. As soon as it comes in it will be posted to this site as usual. However to keep you amused whilst you wait there’s actually a lot of things you can do

Firstly as usual there’s a poll where you can tell me who your favourites were this week. Last week’s poll proved to be incredibly close with Georgia and Giovanni just pipping Jay and Aliona to the top by 12 votes.

Secondly please read all about the BBC’s attack on The Strictly Spoiler which happened this week. Yes that’s right after 4 years of doing this the BBC have finally taken notice but not by reverting to a live results show as so many crave but instead they’re having Facebook remove content for spurious reasons.

If you aren’t happy that a public funded broadcaster is engaging in what basically amounts to censorship and preventing freedom of speech you can join the fightback and let the BBC (and Facebook) know exactly what you think about their attempts at censorship.

Finally I launched a competition last week. Originally you could enter through Facebook, Twitter and this site. Obviously Facebook entry is no longer possible and as a precaution I’ve also ceased entry on Twitter so the only way to enter now is by commenting on the competition post. You could be the lucky winner of a £50 amazon voucher!

Don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter to keep up with all things Strictly Spoiler. You can’t like The Strictly Spoiler anymore on Facebook though because the BBC don’t want you to!

[poll id=”15″]

19th November 201519th November 2015

The Strictly Spoiler Needs You!

As I posted yesterday The BBC launched an attack on The Strictly Spoiler and got Facebook to remove The Strictly Spoiler Facebook Page. Over 1000 visitors to The Strictly Spoiler liked that page and the page was rapidly becoming a community for people to discuss the spoiler, the show and all things Strictly.

The BBC’s removal of this page as well as being an attack on The Strictly Spoiler is also an attack on Freedom of Speech and an attempt at censorship. All from a publicly funded broadcaster.

I’ve spent the last 24 hours thinking about what to do. I have sent a strongly worded email to the BBC which they no doubt won’t bother to read and will just delete. So I’ve decided to launch a petition to the BBC, Tony Hall Director General of The BBC, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg to undo this travesty and reinstate The Strictly Spoiler Facebook Page.

You can support the petition by signing it here. Also please share the petition on your own social networking pages and spread the word.

The BBC may have won the first battle but with your help we can win the war!

Complaints to the BBC!

18th November 201521st November 2015

So The BBC Don’t Want Me To Have A Facebook Page

Just to clear up some confusion, this post is talking about The Strictly Spoiler page on the Facebook social network. Only that page is affected and it is business as usual still on this website

So about 30 minutes ago I received a notification from Facebook and an email informing me that The Strictly Spoiler Facebook page had been removed following a complaint that the page violates a 3rd party’s trademark rights. The email received is below:

So yeah, basically the BBC have complained to Facebook that the page violated their trademark of Strictly Come Dancing even though said page was called “The Strictly Spoiler” and didn’t remotely infringe on their trademarks.

Needless to say I’m not very happy this has happened. The Facebook page was starting to become somewhat of a community with over 1,000 people liking it and many commenting on posts discussing the show, the spoiler and all things Strictly. I’ve also expended a significant amount of money advertising the page on Facebook in order to help build it up, money which has now gone to waste! I’m sure the BBC having this Facebook Page removed is more about trying to stop the results leaking out than it is breach of their trademark especially as many other pages and groups which do use the trademarked text exist and don’t seem to have been targeted by the BBC. Pages/groups such as this one, this one, this one and even this one all clearly infringe the trademark that the BBC is so concerned about and yet they remain on Facebook!

Of course if the BBC aren’t happy with me posting the spoiler to Facebook (or indeed anywhere else) the simple solution would be to do away with the whole pre recording the results show and have it live. It seems a waste of time, not to mention license fee payers money to have staff working to take down a page on Facebook that wasn’t infringing on their trademarks anyway.

Whilst I probably could fight it I simply don’t have the time or the resources to be in a legal battle with a large corporation at the moment. I am an individual with limited financial resources and I’m also a university student with many assignments due in so don’t have a lot of time either. The BBC are a large corporation with many millions of pounds of license fee payers money that they could waste on a legal battle with an individual. It wouldn’t be the first time (*cough* The Stig *cough*). Obviously if anyone who views this site is a copyright/trademark lawyer and wants to work for free…….. well it was worth a try! I am fighting this to the best of my ability though and you can read more about the fight and how you can help HERE

In the mean time I’ve removed any links to the Facebook page from the main site and posts. I’m also suspending entry to the competition I’ve been running on Facebook (for obvious reasons) and Twitter (as a precaution) so currently the only way to enter that competition is through this site now and all entries received on Facebook/Twitter will be void. I really wanted to give something back to the people who have made this site and respective social network communities a success and hopefully I can still do that but having this page taken down on Facebook has unnerved me somewhat and I may have to tone down my activities on social networking sites in the meantime.

Complaints to the BBC