Web Attack Videos Spawn Crackdown Effort

Attention seekers whose thirst for YouTube stardom compels them to videotape themselves beating people up should beware: That 15 minutes of fame could result in four years of prison time.

Prompted by the beating of a Florida cheerleader by eight classmates who filmed the attack with the idea of posting it on the Internet, New York State lawmakers want to crack down on the proliferation of YouTube shock videos.

Senate Republicans are introducing legislation this week that would stiffen the punishment of violent criminals who record themselves.

The bill would establish the crime of "unlawful violent recording," defined as when a person commits a third-degree misdemeanor assault (intentionally causing physical injury to another person) or a violent felony offense with the intent that the recording of the attack be disseminated.

YouTube attackers would face a Class E violent felony charge. A judge would have the discretion to tack on a consecutive prison sentence to whatever punishment the attacker originally received.

Potentially, a person involved in an altercation who would have otherwise faced less than a year in jail could be sentenced to up to four more years for having videotaped the violence and posted it on the Internet.

"The current penalty for the commission of the crimes in these circumstances is not a sufficient deterrent to the acts of these criminals who seek to gain notoriety through the suffering of innocent victims," a draft of the bill memo states.

The case of 16-year-old Victoria Lindsay, a cheerleader who suffered a concussion and bruised eyes after she was ambushed by six girls in a house while two boys filmed the attack, captured national headlines last month after a 30-minute video of the attack landed on YouTube.

The video showed the crying girl cowering before the girls, who slapped, punched, and kicked her. Toward the end, a girl off-camera warned that the recorder had 17 seconds left and said: "Make it good."

The eight teenagers are accused of planning the attack with the intent of posting it on the Internet.

Footage of the beating and related news segments and amateur videos of people commenting on it quickly became a YouTube sensation, with some postings drawing more than a million viewers.

YouTube removed the original beating video posted by the girls, but not before it attracted a reported 500,000 hits.

YouTube this past year has seen a rise in beating videos. One of the most common involves teenagers beating homeless people.

"These things go on on a regular basis, and it's done for the sole purpose of putting it up on YouTube to see how many hits they can get. It's sad," a sponsor of the legislation, Senator Martin Golden, who represents a district in Brooklyn, said. "People are actually being killed. That's what's sad."

The Senate today is scheduled to hold a press conference announcing the legislation. Mr. Golden said he expected a companion bill would be introduced in the Democrat-controlled Assembly.