December 13, 2007

By By Antony Bruno, Denver

A third-party vendor hired to issue takedown notices on sites like YouTube has taken responsibility for the removal of Led Zeppelin concert footage taken during the band's historic reunion.

Sources involved in the situation earlier in the day said the takedown notices came at the behest of the band and its handlers. However, by late Wednesday, the company Grayzone issued a statement acknowledging their involvement and apologizing for their mistake.

"Grayzone regrets that it erroneously issued takedown notices to YouTube regarding footage of Led Zeppelin's Dec. 10 concert," said company president Dorothy Sherman in a statement. "The error is ours alone. We acted without authorization from the band or Warner Music Group. Unfortunately, an automated system mistakenly attributed the removal of the content to a copyright claim by Warner Music Group. That was inaccurate. We have informed YouTube of the error and we regret any inconvenience this may have caused."

Whether this means the footage will reappear on the site is unclear. While Grayzone acknowledges the error, there's no telling whether either the band or its management will prefer to keep the footage off YouTube even if it didn't initiate the takedown notices.

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