Once again this blogger makes Cracked.com ("5 Famous Online Copyright Crusaders Who Are Total Hypocrites")

At this point I've lost count. It's at least the fourth or fifth time that my shenanigans have landed me on popular humor site Cracked.com.

This latest appearance comes courtesy of an article titled "5 Famous Online Copyright Crusaders Who Are Total Hypocrites".  With a title like that I just had to scan and tear it down and analyze it to see what I was doing that was so hypocritical... but I honestly can't find anything about my own part in that very strange episode from the fall of 2007.  In fact, the entire article is about corporations - as Viacom did in that incident - who cry and crow about copyright laws protecting their assets and then steal and violate the assets of everyone else without giving a damn!!

Anyhoo, my situation, "Viacom Lays Claim to a County Board of Education Campaign Video", made #2 on the list.  And if you wanna see the commercial that started it all, from my 2006 campaign for Rockingham County Board of Education, click here to watch "Christopher Knight for School Board TV Commercial #1".

(Personally, I'm still more proud of Commercial #2 and Commercial #3.  In fact, Commercial #3 has always been my favorite of that batch of ads.)

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Google accuses Viacom of secretly uploading its own videos to YouTube (WOW!!!)

This is gonna be a helluva fun thing to watch. I'm getting the popcorn ready even now...

Media conglomermonster Viacom - which has tied up the video hosting service in litigation for the past three years over "copyright infringement" - is now said to have been secretly uploading its own videos to the Google-owned website!

From the statement on the official YouTube blog, pertaining to court documents made public earlier today...

Because content owners large and small use YouTube in so many different ways, determining a particular copyright holder’s preference or a particular uploader’s authority over a given video on YouTube is difficult at best. And in this case, it was made even harder by Viacom’s own practices.

For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt "very strongly" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

Given Viacom’s own actions, there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site. But Viacom thinks YouTube should somehow have figured it out. The legal rule that Viacom seeks would require YouTube -- and every Web platform -- to investigate and police all content users upload, and would subject those web sites to crushing liability if they get it wrong.

Good. Lord.

If true, Viacom's actions are about the most boneheaded legal maneuver pertaining to digital entertainment that I can think of since Universal tried to sue Nintendo for using Donkey Kong to infringe on King Kong when Universal didn't own King Kong to begin with. That case became a huge victory for Nintendo and helped propel it to being the corporate giant that it is today. Might this allegation - if found to be true - prove to be a similar boon for YouTube? Yeah, I think it's possible.

Click here for more about this story, and the learned minds that are Slashdot readers are already contributing their trademark colorful thoughts to the matter.

EDIT 6:48 p.m. EST: Do not think for one moment that I am NOT hysterically giggling about this turn of events, for reasons that should be more than obvious :-)

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YouTube called: I beat Comcast

Okay, YouTube didn't really call me, but you know...

Last month I reported that Comcast was giving me grief about how I posted a clip from E!'s show The Soup where they used MY commercial from the school board campaign in 2006... without asking me, but I was fine with that. I just expected the same courtesy from E! and its ownership that I have given them. That's not too much to ask, in my mind.

And of course, this whole thing is too much like that crazy situation with Viacom a little over two years ago. And just as I did with Viacom then I filed a counterclaim with YouTube, per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

A short while ago I received the following e-mail from YouTube:

Re: [#561937480] YouTube Support

Copyright Service to me

Hi there,
In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we've completed
processing your counter-notification regarding your video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51FpFrMVWOo

This content has been restored and your account will not be penalized.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

So for the third time now (first Viacom, then NBC which quickly acquiesced and retracted their claim against me for posting a clip of The Jay Leno Show that also used my commercial, and now with Comcast) my filing the DMCA counterclaim has been successful. And that's why I'm compelled again to discuss this. Because if an independent content producer like me can take on three multi-billion dollar corporations over DMCA abuse and win each time, then any small-time content producer can do likewise and come out on top.

None of us are without some pretty potent weapons. We just have to know how to use them... and use them properly.

So here it is again: E! Television's The Soup featuring my school board campaign commercial :-)

Glad that this got resolved. And I hope that it never has to happen again!

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MPAA shuts down town's entire Wi-Fi over one download

Coshocton, Ohio is a town without free Internet. Thank the Motion Picture Association of America, which successfully turned off Coshocton's Wi-Fi connection to the world because, allegedly, one person used the wireless access to download a copyrighted movie.

In addition to being of great benefit to out-of-town tourists and business people, the Coshocton County Sheriff's Department personnel have found the Wi-Fi service to be a tremendous convenience by letting then file an accident or incident report without having to leave their vehicles. That's no more, because the MPAA somehow mustered up enough power to violate the Geneva Convention and subject everyone in town to collective punishment.

(Just one more reason why the Digital Millennium Copyright Act needs to be mutilated beyond all possible recognition.)

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Electronic Frontier Foundation launches Takedown Hall of Shame!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation - which many of y'all will remember came to the aid of Yours Truly two years ago during that very bizarre situation with Viacom - is now setting out to document "the worst of the worst" of bogus copyright complaints. Hit here for the Takedown Hall of Shame, featuring outrageous acts of DMCA abuse by Warner Brothers, the Nation Organization for Marriage and many more!

(By the way, in my opinion there are few finer organizations out there than the Electronic Frontier Foundation: those guys really go all-out to defend the rights of content creators. If you're feeling so led, ya might wanna consider making a contribution to 'em 'cuz they definitely more than earn it :-)

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AGAIN?!? YouTube yanks my Star Wars fan film for "copyright" dispute

Oh geez...

Many of you remember a little over a year ago when YouTube yanked the clip I had posted of VH1's Web Junk 2.0 that made use of my my first school board commercial.

Well, this morning I got another "Video Disabled" e-mail from YouTube.

This time, it's about Forcery, the parody of Misery - about George Lucas being held captive by an overly-obsessed Star Wars fan - that we shot in 2004. Forcery was released in 2005 and I posted it on YouTube the following year, so it's already been on YouTube for about three years now.

If you've seen Forcery, then you know that when Lucas (played by lifelong friend Chad Austin) is driving back to California after writing the script for Star Wars Episode III, he turns on the radio and finds himself listening to the classic song "A Horse with No Name" by America. And the song plays on through when he loses control of his car and crashes in the blizzard, only to be later rescued by his "number one fan" Frannie (Melody Hallman Daniel).

Well, somebody has a problem with "A Horse with No Name" being in Forcery and this morning the following e-mail arrived from YouTube...

Dear kwerky,

Video Disabled

A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video FORCERY - Part 1 of 7. The audio content identified in your video is A Horse with No Name by America. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue.

Replace Your Audio with AudioSwap

Don't worry, we have plenty of music available for your use. Please visit our AudioSwap library to learn how you can easily replace the audio in your video with any track from our growing library of fully licensed songs.

Other Options

If you think there's been a mistake, or you have other questions, please visit the Copyright Notice page in your account.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Content Identification Team

Here are some of the reasons why I find this removal to be particularly silly...

1. No one made any money from Forcery. I certainly have not. You have to be a little nuts to make a movie for the first time, not knowing what you are doing and "learning along the way", realizing fully well that you can not see a dime of profit from it. Forcery was a labor of love, and we all had a wonderful experience making it and if I had to go through it again knowing that it couldn't make money, I absolutely would. If anything I lost a few thousand dollars.

2. The complete song of "A Horse with No Name" isn't fully employed by the film, and the vast majority of the time that it's playing, George Lucas is speaking on his cellphone to his producer Rick McCallum. The song has faded into the background and then comes blaring back for dramatic effect when Lucas has his "I've got a very bad feeling about this!" moment. It's not like anyone can make any quality MP3 rip of the song from this clip.

3. As with every song and bit of music that is used in Forcery, I gave attribution for "A Horse with No Name" to musicians (they being the band America) in the end credits. That is something that I have done from the beginning and have always done. It is not at all like I used the song and pretended that I whipped it out of my hat.

4. Forcery could be categorized as a "Star Wars fan film". And the vast majority of fan films - from any milieu out there - use copyrighted elements of some form, be it music or something else. If Forcery has to get yanked because of this, then I would imagine that most other fan films on YouTube and elsewhere are likewise in jeopardy.

5. Come to think of it, the same can be said for most of the other stuff on YouTube as well. Including all of those cute video "mash-ups" using puppies, the Sesame Street Muppets, etc.

So is the rest of Forcery going to also be pulled from YouTube because I used a bunch of Slim Whitman songs?

I'm inclined to laugh about it though 'cuz there's some irony given the timing of this development. And just last night on the phone Chad and I were talking about Forcery and now, well... I guess he's going to have to put up with being in the limelight a little bit more for his terrific portrayal of George Lucas.

Right now I'm mulling it over about what should be done about this. But in the meantime, you can still watch Forcery if you like, in a variety of sizes of Quicktime video. I'll be the first to admit that it's a bit rough around the edges, but a lot of people have called it "hilarious", "whacked" and "like a Troma film but with less violence". So if you feel so led to watch it, enjoy! :-)

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DMCA Abuse: 4,000 Anti-Scientology videos pulled from YouTube

During the past few days American Rights Counsel LLC has forced YouTube to pull more than four thousand videos that are critical of the Church of Scientology. At this time it's unclear whether American Rights Counsel are representing the cult and did so at the behest of Scientologists. What is known is that a butt-load of Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices went out from the firm over a period of twelve hours this past Thursday and Friday, and YouTube had no legal alternative but to immediately yank the contested clips.

The affected YouTube users have already begun responding with DMCA counter-claims (which might explain why this blog has been registering a ton of visits to how I filed my own counter-claim a year ago against Viacom). That is indeed a wise step to take in fighting back.

But YouTube users shouldn't be forced to deal with this anyway. I've said many times since my own dealings with Viacom: the DMCA has turned out to be horrible legislation, rife for all kinds of abuse. Think about it: if anyone currently running for office wanted to, he or she could simply deluge YouTube with fraudulent DMCA infringement notices, and YouTube would be obligated to remove every video that's critical of that candidate... and maybe even official campaign ads from the opposition. And YouTube would have to do it without consideration or oversight.

Isn't that what's happening now with the Church of Scientology?

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Viacom v. Knight at the Citizen Media Law Project

A few days ago was the one year anniversary of that very strange situation between multi-billion dollar multimedia conglomerate Viacom (owner of CBS, Paramount, Comedy Central and many other brands) and Yours Truly. If you're fairly new to this joint here's my first post about what happened and here's the list of all the news articles that I could find about it. Long story short: that wacky first TV commercial that I made for my 2006 school board campaign was broadcast on VH1's Web Junk 2.0, which even though neither VH1 or its parent company Viacom asked for permission I was still fine with it, 'cuz I thought it was pretty hilarious.

Anyway, I posted the short clip of my commercial on Web Junk 2.0 on YouTube, 'cuz I was so proud of it and that Rockingham County, North Carolina got such a shout-out. A month and a half later YouTube yanked the clip at the demand of Viacom 'cuz... get this... Viacom claimed that I was violating their copyright! Well, I filed a protest and the whole thing got some notice, and two weeks later Viacom acquiesced and the clip was restored. Here's the clip that caused so much trouble, including very many less-than-polite comments aimed at Viacom made by other YouTube users, which for reasons that shall be left to myself, I am not choosing to delete.

A few months ago Jim Ernstmeyer wrote me. He's at Harvard Law School and is involved with the Citizen Media Law Project. It aims to be a very extensive database of law pertaining to ordinary folks who - willingly or no - find themselves on the front lines of copyright litigation. The centerpiece of the project is the Legal Threats Database. Ernstmeyer asked for some information about what happened between me and Viacom, which I was more than happy to oblige him with.

And now, Viacom v. Knight is an entry at the Citizen Media Law Project! Which kinda officially makes it legal history. The entire site is well worth checking out for anyone with an academic interest in digital copyright or (like me, unfortunately) comes under the gun of bigtime corporate legal action.

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Judge orders YouTube to surrender ALL user history to Viacom

A judge has ordered YouTube to hand over ALL the history of its users - including videos watched and IP addresses - to Viacom, as part of Viacom's "infringement" lawsuit against YouTube and its owner Google.

I first found the story on Slashdot, which is reflecting a lot of outrage at the judge's ruling.

Since it's already been established that Viacom has STOLEN video from ME, perhaps I should sue and have a judge also give me YouTube's user history so that I can see how many times Viacom watched my own videos...?

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"Dear Sumner Redstone, from the guy you STOLE video from ..."

In spite of what I said about no hard feelings, there ain't no way that I'm gonna let this one slide...

Many of you no doubt remember what happened between me and Viacom several months ago, regarding the first TV commercial from my 2006 school board campaign.

To quickly recap: months after the election, Viacom's network VH1 chose to use my commercial for a segment of its show Web Junk 2.0, without bothering to ask me about it. I didn't mind, heck I thought it was pretty funny. So a few days after that episode runs I posted the clip of Web Junk 2.0 running MY commercial onto YouTube, so that I could share it on this blog.

A month and a half later, I was notified by YouTube that Viacom had demanded that the clip be removed, and YouTube was acquiescing with the order. Viacom actually claimed that I was violating its copyright... when it had violated my copyright to begin with!

Of course, I couldn't believe the rank hypocrisy of the situation. "Chutzpah" is the word I used to describe it. And it really wasn't a question of whether or not I wanted to fight it: the circumstance more or less obligated it. I filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act counter-claim with YouTube, while the case engendered considerable media attention. Two weeks later Viacom yielded and the clip was restored to YouTube. I still gotta thank a lot of good people, especially the folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, for providing considerable support during that whole fiasco.

You'd think that Viacom would have learned a lesson from all of this, right?

Jazz at All Thats Evil was the first to pass along some remarks made last week in South Korean by Sumner Redstone, the CEO of Viacom. Here's the link that Jazz sent from Inside Online Video, which cites John Dvorak's take on Redstone's remarks.

To wit...

[According to Redstone] When you post a clip of The Daily Show on YouTube, for example, that may indeed have a positive effect on the show and its ratings, but it’s not your decision to make. In the world of the media giants, a fan has no special privileges and is not part of the marketing department.

As a fan, your job is to watch a few ads (or buy a ticket), enjoy the show, tell your friends about it, and get out of the way.

And here's a quote directly from Redstone...

During a question-and-answer session after the speech, Redstone took a swipe at popular video-sharing site YouTube, which his company has sued.

"We cannot tolerate any form of piracy by anyone, including YouTube," he said.

Viacom sued YouTube and its parent Google Inc. in March last year, claiming that the Web site is rife with copyrighted video from Viacom shows and seeking more than US$1 billion in damages.

Mr. Redstone, I don't know if you realize this or if you even care, but I am a person that your own company not only STOLE video from, but chose to PROFIT from that theft!

And you have the audacity to tell the world that using the most miniscule segments of video, without asking the original copyright owners for permission or even caring enough to inform them that it's being used, is "theft" and "piracy"? When most people who post clips onto YouTube never make a cent for their efforts while you run a multi-billion dollar company that does the same thing for profit?

Sumner Redstone, shut the hell up, sir!

For all your talk of "cannot tolerate any form of piracy by anyone", you don't give a damn about YOUR OWN COMPANY committing piracy already!

Hell, Viacom never even offered me an apology for when it stole (I wouldn't ordinarily categorize using my video as "theft" by anyone else but Redstone's comments throws this into whole 'nother territory) my video.

Previously I regarded this whole thing as a misunderstanding, and that I was glad we were able to resolve this amiably and "go our separate ways".

But now, after reading Redstone's remarks in Seoul, I have to seriously wonder if I made a mistake in not pressing this further. Parse that as you will...

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How in the world did I get associated with The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince?

Click here for "The Home Video Prince Doesn't Want You To See", a story on the ABC News website. It's about Prince, AKA The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, scouring the Internet for "copyright infringement". The Lenzes, a family in Pennsylvania, had a video of their 18-month old son Holden on YouTube. The clip is only a few seconds long, but in the background you can hear Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy".

That was plenty enough for Prince to have YouTube yank the family's video.

Well, little Holden's mom Stephanie Lenz fought back and filed a DMCA counter-notification claim through YouTube against Universal Music Publishing Group - which is Prince's label - and their claim of copyright infringement. A few weeks later the video was back up.

And somehow, my similar recent situation with Viacom was brought into the discussion...

Caught to some extent in the middle of the takedown notice wars, (YouTube spokesman Ricardo) Reyes declined to address the Prince controversy directly, but said YouTube had been down this road before.

He cited the case of a North Carolina school board council candidate, Christopher Knight, who produced a daffy commercial in which he donned a "Star Wars"-like light saber and promised to protect the school district's students from a metaphorical Death Star.

The VH1 cable television show "Best Week Ever," which highlights amusing online content, featured a clip of the video on their show.

Knight "thought that was so cool he put up the VH1 clip up on his channel on YouTube,'' Reyes said. "And VH1 sent us a take down notice." (To view Knight's video, go to YouTube and search "Christopher Knight.")

If you go to this link on ABC News' website you can watch the televised news report about the Lenz's situation, and about halfway through they play the clip of my school board commercial on VH1!

Okay, that's... kinda... strange to be brought up in an article about Prince (never thought that would ever happen). But seriously folks: after what I went through with Viacom, and now what the Lenzes have had to put up with because of Prince's over-zealousness about his image (anyone else remember the thing about his bodyguards back in the 80s?), this is extremely frustrating to read about, to say nothing of how ridiculous this entire situation with DMCA abuse has become.

Do you realize that per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, that every video on YouTube could be simultaneously claimed as "infringing copyright" and YouTube would have no legal choice but to pull all of them, without considering the facts of the matter in any individual case of infringement claim?

What if one political candidate did not like the YouTube-hosted videos that are favorable toward an opposing candidate, and filed DMCA claims forcing YouTube to remove all of those videos? YouTube would legally be forced to comply. And the candidate who had his videos removed, or his supporters, would have to spend weeks filing DMCA counter-notifications back with YouTube to have the clips restored.

In my mind, it's not a matter of "if" this is going to eventually happen, under the DMCA, but "when".

If this ever does happen to you, and you want to know how I was able to contest Viacom's taking-down of my own video, here's the full text of my DMCA counter-notification claim, along with all the associated correspondence that happened between YouTube and myself. This is absolutely the biggest arrow you will have in your quiver, if you ever get hit with a DMCA removal.

By the way, Stephanie Lenz - with help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (a very good bunch of folks they are and I still cannot thank E.F.F. enough for how they helped me out) - is currently taking Universal to court over this. So I suppose it's possible that we might see some legal re-interpretation of this nonsense at some point. Let us hope so.

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iPhone bricking is DRM run amock

You've probably heard about how some people are taking their new iPhones and hacking them so that they can use carriers other than AT&T, run "third-party" software not approved by Apple, etc. Many or most (maybe all) of these folks are suddenly lugging around very expensive "bricks", because this week Apple released an update for the iPhone that is disabling such modified phones.

I took a looksee through the licensing agreement for the iPhone. The thing is Digital Rights Management from Hell. From my understanding of the agreement, buying and using an iPhone is lifetime indentured loyalty to AT&T, if you want to keep using it. That's beyond the initial two-year service agreement.

In light of my own recent experience with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it sure looks like Apple saw the rights afforded to people by the DMCA if they attempted to circumvent the software and contract, and tried their damndest to do an end-run around that.

Whatever happened to the days when you bough something, and you were free to use it however you wished, so long as you didn't use it to kill someone or otherwise deprive them of their rights? I mean, if you bought an iPhone you own the physical unit. You should be perfectly free to use another carrier or run your own software, or whatever. But if another private party dictates the terms under which you can use it, then it is not really yours at all. You just paid a hefty licensing fee for the rights to use the iPhone per Apple's conditions... but per the strictest definition of "property", you don't own it.

Some will probably say that people hacking their iPhones is analogous to how twenty years ago, some folks used to tamper with their cable boxes to get extra channels without having to pay for them. But it's not the same thing at all. With cable box tampering, the tangible product in question was the television signal itself: people were stealing something that did not legally belong to them. iPhone hacking involves a physical product that the consumer has fully paid an agreed-upon price for: legally - if it's understood that the iPhone is the property of the consumer - the purchaser would have the right to modify the iPhone.

(And no, it's not even the same as the situation with modified Xbox 360s either, since Microsoft only prevents altered 360s from using the Xbox Live service: a situation paralleling that of tampered cable boxes. So far as I know Microsoft hasn't physically "bricked" any modded Xbox 360s.)

It comes down to this: is the iPhone the property of the one who purchases it, or is it the property of Apple?

Hard to believe that the same Steve Jobs who came up with the idea of selling an Apple 1 made of pieced-together parts is now three decades later discouraging others from playing and hacking around with technology.

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YOUTUBE/VIACOM AFTERMATH - Part 2: The DMCA Counter-Notification Claim

Because a lot of people have expressed interest in this, and because I haven't been able to see any reason to withhold this info at this point, here is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act counter-notification claim that I submitted to YouTube.

(And in case you don't know what this is about, here's the original post about my situation with Viacom over a YouTube clip that I had uploaded and here's the post about its resolution.)

---

It all started with the following e-mail that I received from YouTube on the morning of August 29th, 2007:

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Viacom International Inc. claiming that this material is infringing:

Web Junk 2.0 on VH1 features my school board commercial!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddyVQwpByug

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.

Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

I read this and a short while later fired off a reply to YouTube's copyright address (copyright@youtube.com):

This is in regards to the video "Web Junk 2.0 on VH1 features my school board commercial!" that has been hosted on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddyVQwpByug

This morning I received the following notice:

"This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Viacom International Inc. claiming that this material is infringing..."

The clip in question that I had posted was from a recent episode of VH1's "Web Junk 2.0" which spotlighted a video that I produced and have full rights to. It can be found on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLi5B0Iefsk

My clip was used by Viacom for commercial television purposes without attempting to contact me for permission. I did not mind this. I was in fact honored that they thought it worthy of featuring on their show. If anything *they* are violating *my* copyright because they used it in this way without seeking permission. And now they have caused it to be pulled... when in fact it's my own copyrighted material.

I sincerely request that you look into this matter further and you will find that I do have a most valid claim in this matter. Upon which, I would like to request that you restore the clip as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Chris Knight

A minute later, I recieved the following automatic response from YouTube:

Thanks for contacting YouTube! You've reached the copyright and DMCA compliance team. Your message has been received and is now queued for review. Please note that general help inquiries won't be answered here. For help with other site-related issues, please visit our Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/youtube/.

If you're requesting removal of a video that is allegedly infringing your copyright, please make sure that you have provided us with all of the required information in order to process your complaint. Providing incomplete information may delay the processing of your claim. For the requirements of DMCA notification, or if you have questions about our DMCA policy, please see: http://www.youtube.com/t/dmca_policy

Did you know that YouTube offers copyright owners a tool for submitting notifications more easily? If there are many videos to be removed, or you expect to have an ongoing need to remove potentially infringing content from YouTube, we suggest that you sign up for our Content Verification Program, which electronically notifies us, removing any room for error, and significantly increases the speed at which we are able to remove any infringing content. To sign up for this tool please visit: http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_program

Regards,
The YouTube Team

That e-mail correspondence all took place shortly after 11 a.m. EST. Five and a half hours later, at 5:47 p.m., another e-mail from YouTube arrived:

Dear Chris,

We received notification from Viacom International Inc. When we're notified that a particular video uploaded to our site infringes another's copyright, we remove the material as the law requires. If you feel a content owner has misidentified your content as infringing, you may file a DMCA counter-notification.

For more information, visit our Copyright Tips page,
http://youtube.com/t/dmca_policy.

Sincerely,

Harry
The YouTube Team

I went to the link that Harry at YouTube sent me. I'd already visited it earlier in the day when I was looking at my options, writing up the report for the blog on what had happened, etc. After this new mail from YouTube I looked over it once again, and immediately began writing my DMCA counterclaim.

I followed YouTube's directions precisely. It didn't take long at all to compose and submit it. I sent it to YouTube at 6:34 p.m., less than an hour after the last YouTube e-mail.

Here it is:

From: kwerkyproductions@gmail.com
to: copyright@youtube.com
Subject: DMCA counter-notification regarding ddyVQwpByug

Dear YouTube,
I wish to file a DMCA counter-notification in regards to the following video clip that was previously hosted on YouTube:

Web Junk 2.0 on VH1 features my school board commercial!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddyVQwpByug

I do hereby state under penalty of perjury that it is my good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.

The video clip in question is a segment of the "Animals & Other Crap" edition of the television series Web Junk 2.0 on the cable network VH1, which is owned by Viacom. I used the segment per Fair Use because it is a derivative work from original material of which I am the creator and the copyright owner. The original video can be found at http://youtube.com/watch?v=nLi5B0Iefsk

Viacom did not seek my permission to use this not-for-profit material of my own creation for purposes of commercial television. As such, Viacom infringed on my own copyright. I knew this but did not seek to pursue any legal measure against them. Under the law, I still maintain copyright over even such derivative work.

In pressing YouTube to remove this video clip, Viacom is legally declaring that I am practicing copyright infringement against my own copyrighted material: in effect Viacom is assuming that it owns full copyright of the material.

I am sure that YouTube will appreciate the peculiarity of the matter, and will understand that as the original creator of the material and being one who is not seeking monetary compensation for Viacom's use of it, that I merely wish to continue using the clip under Fair Use. And as such, that you will restore the clip to its original address as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Christopher Knight

(STREET ADDRESS)
(CITY, STATE, ZIP)
(PHONE NUMBER)
kwerkyproductions@gmail.com

I hereby consent to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which this address is located, and that I will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) or an agent of such person.

Once again, this was met with an automatic reply from YouTube:

Thanks for contacting YouTube! You've reached the copyright and DMCA compliance team. Your message has been received and is now queued for review. Please note that general help inquiries won't be answered here. For help with other site-related issues, please visit our Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/youtube/.

If you're requesting removal of a video that is allegedly infringing your copyright, please make sure that you have provided us with all of the required information in order to process your complaint. Providing incomplete information may delay the processing of your claim. For the requirements of DMCA notification, or if you have questions about our DMCA policy, please see: http://www.youtube.com/t/dmca_policy

Did you know that YouTube offers copyright owners a tool for submitting notifications more easily? If there are many videos to be removed, or you expect to have an ongoing need to remove potentially infringing content from YouTube, we suggest that you sign up for our Content Verification Program, which electronically notifies us, removing any room for error, and significantly increases the speed at which we are able to remove any infringing content. To sign up for this tool please visit: http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_program

Regards,
The YouTube Team

And this was all that I heard from YouTube for more than 48 hours. On August 31st at 8:45 p.m., the following e-mail arrived:

Dear Kwerky,

Thank you for your counter-notification. It has been forwarded to the
party that sent the takedown notification.

Sincerely,

Harry
The YouTube Team

There was no further correspondence from YouTube, until this e-mail arrived on September 11th at 8:57 p.m. (and I first read it about 20 minutes after it was sent):

Dear Kwerky,

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we've completed processing your counter-notification dated x/xx/xx regarding your video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddyVQwpByug

This content has been restored and your account will not be penalized.

Sincerely,

Harry
The YouTube Team

Well, I checked to make sure the clip was really back and it was. So after waking up my wife to tell her that this was, apparently, finally over with and that the clip was restored, and then making some phone calls, about an hour after reading that e-mail I sent the following back to YouTube:

Dear YouTube,
Thank you for restoring this clip, and I greatly appreciate your assistance in resolving this matter.

sincerely,
Chris Knight

---

And that was basically it so far as official action from this end went. It almost seems to have been too easy, but in all honesty I have to once again thank Fred von Lohmann and the staff at the Electronic Frontier Foundation for helping me out with this. Von Lohmann also suggests referencing the Fair Use Network's site explaining how to respond to DMCA takedown notices.

But if you ever wind up in a similar situation with YouTube or a similar service, and if you believe you do have strong grounds to contest a removal of material that you've posted, you can fight it and the first step is to file that DMCA counter-notification. Indeed, if you don't do this, there is really not much that anyone could do on your behalf. You've got to agree to some pretty serious conditions in filing the claim, such as potentially being brought to court and that you file understanding that you could be held liable for perjury. But if you sincerely believe that you are in the right and if you are willing to fight for your material, then the conditions really aren't terribly unreasonable. I can see that those things are there mostly to dissuade those who might file frivolous counterclaims.

So if this ever happens to you, now you know what I went through in getting my own clip restored on YouTube and hopefully it will help you out, too :-)

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YOUTUBE/VIACOM AFTERMATH - Part 1: The Media Exposure

It took quite awhile longer than I'd expected. This thing got around in a big way, what with The Wall Street Journal and Yahoo! and Slashdot and Ars Technica and seemingly a jillion more outlets that covered it. Lots of people wanted to weigh in on this and for sake of objectivity I've tried my best to include everyone that I could find that raised valid arguments about this issue, regardless of which side they took.

So here ya go: a (more or less) definitive reference to the published articles about the Christopher Knight/YouTube/Viacom incident.

SPECIAL MENTIONS

Kevin Nalty AKA "Nalts" himself provided commentary on the controversy early on with this nice video that I totally dug...

"Viacom's copyright cops get carried away" - by Nick Ferrell for THE INQUIRER also deserves special recognition because this is the first time ever that I've been referred to as a "bloke". Farrell also writes that I "stood for" school board (yes this is a British publication :-)

And The 12 Angry Men Blog bestowed me with the honor of "Hero of the Week" this past Friday :-)

---

PERSONAL INTERVIEWS

"'Saber man', YouTube run afoul of copyright" - by Gerald Witt for the News & Record

"Viacom slaps YouTuber for behaving like Viacom" - by Cade Metz for The Register

"'Star Wars Man' Runs Into Trouble with Viacom for YouTube Video" - by Chad Tucker for Fox 8 WGHP (with video)

"Small Town Man: Victim or Copyright Infringer?" - by Abby Prince for WebProNews

Plus Ultra Podcast Episode 5 with Tracy R. Twyman (audio interview in MP3 format)

"Vindu's View: YouTube copyright fight shows fair and legal different" - by Vindu Goel for San Jose Mercury News

"A tale of two videos: what's mine is mine unless you change it enough to make it yours" - by Vindu Goel for San Jose Mercury news

"Followup: Chris Knight wins battle with Viacom over YouTube clip" - by Vindu Goel for San Jose Mercury News

"YouTube, Viacom bow to light-sabre wielding defender of online justice" - by Cade Metz for The Register

"YouTube video involving local candidate resurfaces" - by Gerald Witt for the News & Record

"Chris Knight's Copyright Infringement Case Resolved" - by Abby Prince for WebProNews

---

PUBLISHED ARTICLES BEFORE REINSTATEMENT

"Viacom Says User Infringed His Own Copyright" - by Slashdot

"Punishing Corporate Copyright Abusers" - by Dan Gillmor for Center for Citzen Media

"YouTube yanks goofy 'Death Star' clip at Viacom's insistence" - by Russell Shaw for ZDNet.com

"So by Terms of Service, you mean like a bull services a cow" - by John Murrell for SiliconValley.com

"Viacom steals video, issues take down notice to the artist" - by Fair Use Day

"Here's Your 15 Minutes And Your DMCA Notice" - by Jason Lee Miller for WebProNews

Viacom: It's Not Copyright Infringement When We Do It" - by Kristen Nicole for Mashable

"Viacom is a Big, Mean Bully" - by Kevin Nalty for Will Video For Food

"Viacom Can Take Your Stuff and Copyright It" - by Evan for Uneasy Silence

"Viacom runs Web video, claims copyright" - by Owen Thomas for Valleywag

"Viacom says that local blogger infringed on his own copyright" - by Darkmoon for LUX.ET.UMBRA

"YouTube Complies with Viacom" - by Jordan McCollum for Marketing Pilgrim

"Christopher Knight's Crapolicious Copyright Case" - by roasty for Crapolicio.us

"This time Viacom is accused of violating copyright" - by Greg Sandoval for CNET News.com

"Chutzpah!" - by Mike Weiksner for Connected Conversations

"Viacom - pokaz hipokryzji" by Antyweb (IN POLISH!)

"Man posts on YouTube: Viacom steals video & then files takedown on Creator" - by Simon G Best for Groklaw

"Viacom Accuses Guy Of Copyright Infringement For Showing Video Of Viacom Infringing On His Copyright" - by Mike Masnick for Techdirt

"Viacom's 'bass-ackwards' screw-up: issues takedown for video it 'pirated'" - by Jacqui Cheng for Ars Technia

"Viacom breaks copyright time continuum" - by DiscoZome for Unknown Worlds Forum

"Viacom orders YouTube to remove a copy of their work they took from said YouTuber?" - by Sean P. Aune for TECHBLORGE.com

"Is plagiarism protected by copyright law?" - by Silicon Valley Sleuth

"Full-Circle Copyright Infringement" - by The J-Walk Blog

"Quand c’est Viacom ce n’est pas une infraction au copyright!" - by Aziz Haddad for Mashable (IN FRENCH!)

"Copyfight: Viacom runs Web video, claims copyright" - by Technology News Blog

"Viacom in a copyright doomloop" - by Adriana Lukas for Media Influencer

"Viacom's Chutzpah" - by Jeff for spin the cat

"Viacom Dings Man For Copying His Own Video" - by Yahoo! Tech

"Viacom Pulls Clip It Doesn't Necessarily Own" - by Jackson West for NewTeeVee

"Viacom Accuses Copyright Owner of Copyright Infringement!" - by Mike Abundo for Inside Online Video

"Misusing and Abusing Social Media and Trust" - by Laurel Papworth

"Viacom's Got Big Balls" - by Bubba for Fazed

"YouTube DMCA Chutzpah? Sorry, Viacom Also Entitled to Play Fair Use Game" - by Donna Bogatin for Inside Chatter

"Urheberrechtsposse: Viacom vs. Knight vs. Viacom" - by Felix Knoke for Spiegel Online (IN GERMAN!)

"Don't make Christopher Knight the posterboy for copyright oppression" - by Evan Brown for InternetCases.com

"Say What?" - by Bob Schwartz for A South Dakota Moderate

"Hypocrisy in the Copyright Infringement Debate" - by Of Zen and Computing

"Viacom slammed for pulling VH-1 YouTube clip" - by Matt Chapman for vnunet.com

"YouTube-Related Legal Disputes, Part I" - by Peter Lattman for The Wall Street Journal

"Viacom s 'bass ackwards' screw-up issues takedown for video it 'pirated'" - by Chad Smith

"Viacom: Fair Use Is What We Say It Is" - by Scott Gilbertson for Wired

"For Me and Not for Thee" - by Sleepcatz

"Audacity: Viacom copies YouTuber’s video w/o permission, then accuses YouTuber of infringement" - by The UTube Blog

"Viacom Once Again Abusing DMCA?" - by Andy Beal for Marketing Pilgrim

"The One with the double standard" - by in the key of :: T

"Viacom: Direitos de autor? O que é isso?" - by OrangeEye (IN PORTUGUESE! I think...)

"Indie Filmmaker in Copyright Spat With Viacom Over YouTube Clips" - by Mark Hefflinger for Digital Media Wire

"Viacom demonstrates the meaning of the word 'hypocrisy'" - by Less for Stupid Evil Bastard

"Can you copyright something you've nicked?" - by Dizzy for Dizzy Thinks

"How to Infringe Your Own Coyright - It Happened on YouTube" - by Bogdan Popa for Softpedia

"Christopher vs. Goliath" - by Tilly Gokbudak

"Full-Circle Copyright" - by Bernard Goldbach

"YouTube coypright conundrum" - by Software Online Guide

"Copyright Infringement Goes Meta" - by Erin Simon for Maximum PC

"Hvem eier en YouTube-video?" - by Electroworld (IN NORWEGIAN!)

"Copywrong" - by Rob for Unconventional Wisdom

"Viacom's flexible attitude toward fair use" - by Matthew Sag for Fairly Useful

---

PUBLISHED ARTICLES AFTER REINSTATEMENT

" Viacom Yields to YouTuber Who DMCA Counterclaimed" - by Slashdot

"Return of the Jedi" - by Ed Cone

"Amateur's Counter-Notification on Viacom Results in Clip Returning" - by Kevin Nalty for Will Video For Food

"YouTube restores clip downed by Viacom" - by Nick Farrell for The Inquirer

"Viacom admits mistaken DMCA notice after EFF gets involved" - by The UTube Blog

"YouTube restores Viacom-banned VH-1 clip" - by Matt Chapman for vnunet.com

"YouTube Reverses Course on User’s Video: Reposts It" - by Dan Gillmor for Center for Citizen Media

"Don't Be Bullied By Big Business! Counter False Copyright Infringement Claims" - by Justin Hall for My PC Pros

"Viacom Copyright Infringement Lifted" - by The Judge for Media Morgue

"Remember that guy who got his video stolen by VH1 and Viacom had his clip taken down from Youtube? He filed a DMCA counterclaim, and won" - by reddit

"School Board Candidate Beats Viacom" - by Movieweb

"School Board Candidate Beats Viacom" - by contactmusic.com

"YouTube restores controversial clip protested by Viacom" - by Ruben Francia for TECH.BLORGE.com

"YouTube Honors Counter-Notification Versus Viacom" - by Mike Abundo for Inside Online Video

"Man defeats Viacom in DMCA takedown dispute" - by vurbal for afterdawn.com

"Look Before You Upload" - by John Naughton for The Observer

"Fallen Star Wars Clip on YouTube Has Been Restored" - by Kristen Nicole for Mashable

"School Board Candidate Beats Viacom" - by IMDB Studio Briefing

"I'm Back" - by Jeffrey Starr for Not Bad Films

"Campaigners who get told they don't own the rights to their own election ads" - by The Labour Humanist

"A banner week for music and copyright" - by chooch for Shuroki Online

"Update: good guy wins, Viacom loses" - by Mike Weiksner for Connected Conversations

If there's any more that are found, I'll be sure to post them here also.

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YouTube restores Rational Response Squad's account (and commentary about supporting a group of atheists)

Early this morning Brian Sapient of the Rational Response Squad posted on the group's site that YouTube had restored their account.

You might remember a few days ago when I wrote here about how the atheist Rational Response Squad had apparently been targeted by a Christian organization. Creation Science Evangelism Ministries allegedly filed "false DMCA copyright requests" against the Rational Response Squad with YouTube, and YouTube subsequently yanked Rational Response Squad's account. But as you can see, it is now back up.

In the past few days since posting on this blog that I would "give the Rational Response Squad my full support in this matter", plenty of e-mail has come into my box about that. A lot of the sentiment is reflected in the comments made on the earlier post. And many people are really, really angry that I took up sides with a group of atheists on this issue. Especially in light of what, supposedly, Rational Response Squad has done in the past.

The first time that the Rational Response Squad ever appeared on my radar screen was during the weekend, when this affair with YouTube made news. I don't know what the Rational Response Squad has done before.

Saying that I'm supporting them in this matter does in no way certify or imply in the least bit that I'm somehow endorsing their attitudes and tactics in other matters.

But don't take that to mean that just because I do follow Christ, that it's supposed to mean that I automatically endorse "my side" in every situation, either.

This thing is for the Rational Response Squad to hash-out with Creation Science Evangelism Ministries. I don't have a dog in that hunt...

...although I do feel compelled to say this to Creation Science Evangelism Ministries: you guys aren't "getting" it at all. And these kinds of shenanigans aren't doing the ministry of Christ any favors. If anything, this enmity against the Rational Response Squad is hurting our cause, which is supposed to be one borne in love. I can't see that happening here at all.

Why did I, a Christian, lend my support to a group of atheists in this situation? Because it was the Christian thing to do. Nothing more and nothing less. If that doesn't satisfy you then maybe it'll please you to know that it was at least the American thing to do. As in the real America: the people that used to be able to disagree without feeling obligated to destroy each other. The people who used to be wise enough to realize that if it could happen to others, it could happen to them too.

This shouldn't happen to atheists any more than it should happen to Christians.

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More alleged DMCA abuse on YouTube: Creationists use law to silence critics

Now that the Viacom/YouTube situation is behind me (I hope), I'm in the process of putting together a collection of the various published news stories/blog posts about it all: from the time it began to its resolution. And I'm also working on documenting the step-by-step process that I went through to contest it, including the full text of the counterclaim.

Suffice it to say, one of the things that has happened as a result of all this is that I'm now much more interested in digital copyright matters than I was before.

So this article on Slashdot caught my eye: a pro-atheist group called the Rational Response Squad has had its YouTube account terminated after an organization called Creation Science Evangelism Ministries allegedly flooded YouTube with "false DMCA copyright requests". The termination apparently came after the Rational Response Squad tried to contest the copyright claims (I'm assuming this means that the Rational Response Squad filed DMCA counterclaims as I did in my situation).

I definitely don't agree with the Rational Response Squad and what they stand for. And there's probably not much at all that these people would ever appreciate about my being a believer in God and a follower of Christ (albeit a very imperfect one).

All the same, if these allegations are true then a dire injustice is being done to the Rational Response Squad by way of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And YouTube has a lot of explaining to do.

And if Creation Science Evangelism Ministries is indeed attacking its critics with fraudulent claims like this, then the people behind it are showing a very poor example of Christ-like character. And they should be called out for that. But right now I'm more concerned about what is happening with YouTube and the DMCA.

I can almost understand what happened with YouTube so far as my incident went. They were put between the proverbial "rock and a hard place". And under the DMCA once a copyright claim was received, they had to act accordingly. They acted wrong, but in looking back and knowing more about it than I did before, I don't see how YouTube had any choice under the law but to remove it... at least until I filed the DMCA counterclaim.

But this situation with Rational Response Squad and Creation Science Evangelism Ministries is, in many ways, far worse than mine was. The thing with my video was at best, I like to think anyway, ignorance. The actions against the Rational Response Squad could - it might be argued in a court of law - be criminal.

However what is really troubling is that, if the report that Slashdot posted is true, then YouTube has terminated the Rational Response Squad's account without a complete and considerate investigation of the matter. And maybe I'm thinking on a way wrong level here when I say this but after reading what is supposedly happening with the Rational Response Squad, it's enough to make me wonder what might have happened to my own account when I filed the counterclaim against Viacom's move against my own YouTube video. Without the considerable press that my situation generated, would YouTube have been just as keen to not have my account be terminated?

You would think that YouTube would give every claim and counterclaim the seriousness that each deserves, even knowing that many of them are no doubt going to be frivolous. That's to be expected of any enterprise that's put itself in the public position that YouTube has done. But to possibly not only fail to investigate such inane claims but also acquiesce to them goes so far beyond negligence, that I also cannot but believe that these actions would be criminal in nature also.

As I said before: as a Christian, I don't agree with what the Rational Response Squad stands for. But if what they are saying is true and they are indeed being quashed on YouTube by Creation Science Evangelism Ministries, then I'll give the Rational Response Squad my full support in this matter.

I'll close this post out with an observation using my personal "worst possible epithet for anything". This situation, along with my own and numerous others, proves one thing: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act sucks donkeys balls to no end.

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