Viacom Yields to YouTuber Who DMCA Counterclaimed

Jason the Weatherman writes "Two weeks ago Viacom charged Christopher Knight with copyright infringement for posting on YouTube a clip from Web Junk 2.0 on VH1 that featured Knight's zany school board commercial. Two days ago YouTube reported to Knight that his clip was back up and that his account wouldn't be punished. What happened? Knight filed a DMCA counter-notification claim with YouTube: something that happens 'all too rarely' according to Fred von Lohmann at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From the article: 'Almost no one ever files a counter notice. That's the biggest problem we've encountered [with DMCA claims on sites like YouTube]. Most people have no idea that right exists.'"

Comments

VH1's theft

[dada21]

As many know, I am anti-copyright to begin with, but I wonder why Knight isn't setting up to sue VH1 for "stealing" "his" content and rebroadcasting it.

Not only did they take his content, but they also attempted to defend his content via the (fraudulent) DMCA and call it their own.

Might as well go David vs. Goliath in this case, and settle the score with VH1 for the fully penalty of the law.

Actually

[prxp]

Most people have no idea that right exists.

Actually, most people don't have copyrights over the material that gets pulled off.

Unfortunately, Fair Use Works Both Ways

[eldavojohn]

As many know, I am anti-copyright to begin with, but I wonder why Knight isn't setting up to sue VH1 for "stealing" "his" content and rebroadcasting it. Probably because his assertion that they stole his content is just as laughable as their assertion that he stole their content. Unless they showed the whole thing, there is this concept of 'fair use' and, I'm sorry to inform you, it applies to companies as well as individuals.

If you make your own little film & a company releases snippets of it on their station with commentary (exactly what happened here), they should be protected just as you would be if you took 30 seconds worth of film from a Tom Cruise movie and over dubbed it with hilarious Scientology remarks at opportune times.

Not only did they take his content, but they also attempted to defend his content via the (fraudulent) DMCA and call it their own. I think you should really read up on this. He can counter sue for the damages incurred from them demanding he take it down, maybe even cover his time and any legal fees he had but nothing more than that. And it would be awful hard for him to define a missing video on his YouTube site in terms of dollars.

A disservice to the rest of the world

[Rhys]

Has Viacom (as a corporation) actually learned anything from this exchange? Probably not. They'll go on sending out questionable DMCA violations because most people will roll over and let Viacom have their way with no fight.

I'd much rather have seen him drag Viacom into court and cost them a lot of money -- because that's all that corporations seem to understand these days. Said loss of money would cause them to at least devote 5 seconds of some human's brain time to the question of "is sending out this DMCA takedown going to land us in court and cause us to lose a ton of money" before sending out future DMCA takedowns.

And that, in my opinion, would have been very good thing.

Re:No Idea at All

[Danse]

Most people have no idea that right exists. I certainly didn't. Here's a DIY. Whenever YouTube takes someone's content down, they should let them know that they can file a counter-claim if they believe they are not infringing. They should give them a link like you did. Problem solved.

Re:No Idea at All

[OECD]

I don't think it's so much that nobody knows counter notices exist, it's that most people infringing are truly infringing.

Well, *I* think that most people are just reluctant to open themselves up to the possibility of having to defend that assertion in court. Easier to just let it be taken down (and email it to the people you really want to see it.)

There's also the amorphous nature of fair use and youtube's defacto 'place to post vids' status. If I'm writing a blog entry on a cinematic technique, say the use of a rack focus, I can absolutely put up a clip that shows that technique. But someone trolling youtube might not realize that's why it's there. And indeed, absent that educational component it might indeed be infringing. So how sure am I that the clip will be found non-infringing? Which context will be judged?

That said, it'd be amusing if joeuser@aol.com submits a counter notice about his upload (some awesome video he "found") and then gets sued to high hell since it's "under penalty of perjury" that he asserts there's been a mistake.

That said, I'd love to see someone actually sued over issuing a take-down notice on what is clearly fair use.