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A British pianist and YouTuber has been accosted by a furious Chinese TV crew who demanded he delete video showing their faces, despite being filmed in a public place.
Brendan Kavanaugh, who regularly livestreams his public performances to more than two million subscribers, was playing on a piano in a London shopping centre on Friday when the bizarre confrontation erupted as hundreds of viewers watched on, leading to police being called to defuse the situation.
Clips of the incident have since gone viral on X with millions of views.
“This is insane,” GB News commentator Lee Harris wrote.
“Brendan Kavanagh, a YouTuber and pianist, was legally playing and filming in a public place. A group visiting from communist China didn’t like it and told him he couldn’t film them. The police were terrible. This is Britain. Not China.”
The group of Chinese nationals, holding Chinese flags, could be seen standing nearby enjoying the performance at the start of the stream, but after they realised they were being filmed they approached to inform him it was “not allowed”.
“We’re here for Chinese TV — did you film all of us in your cameras?” one of the women asks.
“I don’t know — are we allowed? We’re not allowed?” Kavanaugh says.
“You’re not allowed because we’re for Chinese TV, so this is not disclosable,” she says.
“Will we get in trouble with the Chinese government?” Kavanaugh asks. “So according to Chinese law we’re not allowed to film here?”
A man with the group then steps in. “So basically, it would be much appreciated when whatever you’re doing that you don’t put our face on TV,” he says.
“So what will happen?” Kavanaugh says.
“Just don’t do it, please,” the man responds.
“We would really appreciate that. We are very sensitive about this. We’re really sorry, but we love your music. We don’t want our voice, our picture being filmed. All of us, we cannot share our images online. That’s our right. It is a legal thing, this is our right we’re protecting, we don’t want our voice or images to be shared online.”
He then warns that “we will put a legal action into it”, and as Kavanaugh continues to argue says “I’m sorry this is the end of the conversation”.
“We’re in a free country, mate,” Kavanaugh hits back. “You’re not in communist China now, you know.”
“I’m sorry this is racist now,” the man says.
“We’re in a free country, mate, we can film where we want,” Kavanaugh says. “Call the police if you want. When you’re in Rome you do as the Romans do.”
Another woman with the group then tells Kavanaugh “we have image rights, I have my choice” and that “we don’t want to share our image”.
She claims she is a British citizen, prompting Kavanaugh to point out her Chinese flag. “You’ve got the Chinese flag, show the Chinese flag,” he says, reaching for the flag.
The man with the group then explodes in a sudden outburst of fury.
“Why you touching her? Stop touching her!” he screams at Kavanaugh, who looks taken aback. “Please, you are not the same age, please don’t touch her,” the man yells.
Two police officers soon arrive, with the male officer explaining to the Chinese man: “You’re in a public place. If they’re filming they have a right. If they’re filming and you’re in a public place, your face could be on that video.”
After speaking with the group, the female officer then asks to speak to Kavanaugh and requests he turn off his camera, which he refuses to do.
She suggests he was “shouting communist comments at them”.
“No, I said, ‘You’re waving a communist flag,’” he says.
“And the hand — (was it) meant to be going towards her? Were you trying to touch her in that regard?” the officer asks.
“I was not trying to touch her, that’s why I have a camera,” he says.
“They’ve requested that the video where they’ve approached gets deleted and not used on your channel because there’s money being made, and they work for a company and their faces can’t be shown,” the officer says.
Kavanaugh accuses her of acting like their “private security”.
“We’re in a free country, we’re in a democracy, we’re not in China and that’s not racist, that’s the truth,” he says.
“Exactly, but you can’t just say things like that,” the officer says.
“Say what, that we’re in a free country?” he says.
“No, that we’re not in China,” she says.
British barrister Daniel ShenSmith, who goes by BlackBeltBarrister on YouTube, said Kavanaugh was completely in the right in the situation.
“If you’re in a public place there is no automatic right to privacy,” he said.
“If you’re walking around a very public open space … or they come up to something which is obviously a public event of some sort where there’s people filming, there’s no automatic right to privacy there, and so there’s no compulsion on anybody to delete the footage, prevent it going online or supply a copy of it and things like that.”
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