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YouTube Reposts Anti-Scientology Videos
Ian Lamont writes "YouTube has reposted anti-Scientology videos and reinstated suspended YouTube accounts after receiving thousands of apparently bogus DCMA take-down notices. Four thousand notices were sent to YouTube last Thursday and Friday by American Rights Counsel, LLC. After YouTube users responded with counter-notices, many of the videos were reposted. It turns out that the American Rights Counsel had no copyright claim on the videos, and the group may not even exist, although the text of the DCMA notices have been linked to a Wikipedia editor. While filing a false DMCA notice is a criminal offense, prosecution in these cases rarely comes about."
While filing a false DMCA notice is a criminal offense, prosecution in these cases rarely comes about.
Sounds like this would be a good time to start.
I can't think of a nicer group of people to sue.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
Yes. Did you miss the big scrolling letters running across the screen?
The odd thing about Scientology is although that is what they believe, Scientologists are only told it after they have spent an awful lot of time and money on Scientology.
I must be new here...
Yes, they do.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Here is their own link
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103804/
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
No ... it's more like, they can't think of a better, more LUCRATIVE scam than the one they've cooked up!
How many nation-wide con-artist operations do you see out there that are protected by federal legislation (organized religion status)?
Just 2 days ago, I received some propaganda piece in the mail from their "church". It was trying to recruit new members with false "scientific findings" they published. (Basically, the premise was that all the chemicals we encounter in our daily lives are permanently lodging themselves in our bodies and poisoning us. By signing up with their group, they could put you through a "cleansing" process to restore your body's "natural state". They actually claimed that it was a *scientific finding* that common anesthesia drugs were discovered permanently stored in people's fat tissue, among other things. Citation was conveniently left out on that, though.)
See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology)#Court_cases_involving_.22Fair_Game.22, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_Spaink, http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/, http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/idx_coskit.html, http://home.snafu.de/tilman/j/general.html
See also this quote from Wikipedia:
In 1994, Vicky Aznaran, who had been the Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center (the Church's central management body), claimed in an affidavit that Because of my position and the reports which regularly crossed my desk, I know that during my entire presidency of RTC "fair game" actions against enemies were daily routine. Apart from the legal tactics described below, the "fair game" activities included break-ins, libel, upsetting the companies of the enemy, espionage, harassment, misuse of confidential communications in the folders of community members and so forth.
This is one of the good reasons why the sect tends to be viewed with suspicion in Western Europe (the sect is currently defending itself in France against a charge of fraud (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7604311.stm)). I'm still unclear as to exactly how sect has been able to secure the tax-exempt status of "church" with the US authorities. I have read that it was by successfully harassing the relevant officials, but that's quite hard to prove of course.
I meant that they probably want to portray themselves as a "oppressed minority" or something like that...
Ironic, since isn't it their intention to genocide the Thetans or something bizarre like that?
If someone were to prosecute them for persecuting Thetans, what would their defense be?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
We have a winner. This is most likely the real reason for the mass takedown.
Mod parent up.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
An e-meter isn't a voltmeter, it's a potentiometer (it measures resistance not voltage). It's based on a Wheatstone bridge design, and is a very sensitive way to measure the resistance between the probes. Since hydration levels, stress, sweat, etc., can all change the resistivity of human skin, an e-meter will measure these changes, which can then be (fraudulently) be interpreted as being of religious significance.
It's nothing more than a half-assed lie-detector.
They are honestly going to let Scientology get away with this bollocks? Wow. That sucks. It'd be funny to finally see themselves sucker punch their own faces by trying.
Nobody knows if this was done by official Scientology, by some scientologist who got carried away, or by some prankster who thought it would be fun. No matter who it was, the DMCA act states very clearly that claiming that you are acting for the copyright holder when you are not is _perjury_. Which is quite a serious matter. Which needs to be multiplied by 4000. Which means whoever did this needs to be caught and thrown into jail to discourage any repeats of this.
Imagine he or she gets away with it, and next week 8000 videos about flower arranging get a DMCA takedown notice. Which would be even more disruptive, because people putting up those videos probably have less experience handling such a situation.
A DMCA take-down notice includes a sworn statement indicating that you are acting on behalf of the copyright holder. If they were sent by someone else then this is a case of perjury, and since they were sent by a law firm there should be a simple trail to identify the responsible party. Unless they were sent by someone pretending to be a lawyer, in which case that's two illegal actions.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
In some ways it doesn't matter. If the case is put against the church and won then (as per previous rulings about them getting into trouble again) Scientology France could be dissolved.
I've done some searching, and so far, all Web hits for the entire name "American Rights Counsel LLC" (actual search string, incl. quotes) - even the foreign-language hits - all only point to news postings related to the takedowns. That's 101/101 hits total from a single Google search with that string, followed by 102/102 via Yahoo. Not a single one showing that group in a neutral light.
I'd therefore posit that this was either a non-Anonymous individual/group trying to draw negative attention towards the Church of Scientology, or an act carried out by a shell group controlled by the Office of Special Affairs (an actual group within the CoS).
there's no such thing as a "rogue $cientologist" - this guy was obviously pulling this stunt with the knowledge/approval of cult leadership and organization.
It was probably along the lines of something like this - his "auditor" told him this was what he needed to do to "clear" something, so he did it.
Of course, Wikipedia's completely bombarded by pro-$cientology stooges who try to whitewash whatever they can from articles on the cult. I'm not surprised one of their stooges popped up trying this on Youtube to remove videos by people who expose the cult for what it is.
Ohm meter. Voltage == potential.
Remember L. Ron's first rule of dealing with the media - "Never Defend, Always Attack."
And of course, any "Suppressive Person" is "Fair Game." (also here). Note the following: "May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."
From the Wikinews article:
Certainly looks like typical lying/"fairgame" $cientology behavior in action, doesn't it? I doubt one thing Schaper said about himself is true - and certainly doubt the idea that the FBI would be "involved" in the lies of a $cientologist. But that never does stop the Cult of $cientology from going about its business.
I'm pretty sure that the Quakers have a distinct lack of blood in their history.
Now that it looks like this "American Rights Council" doesn't exist, I wonder if Google is going to start to require notarized DMCA take-down notices. Prior to this 4000-long list of notices, Google might not have had the evidence to show that DMCA notices were being abused, but this should provide ample evidence should Google ever get in legal trouble if they only accept notarized DMCA take down notices in the future.
The benefit for Google is obvious, as is the benefit for all of their users, etc. It's a big enough win to make me wonder if someone didn't just plan this as a way to weed out the chaff that is getting sent to YouTube legal; this event should hopefully send a warning to the RIAA and other groups that shoot from the hip with take-down notices: abuse of the DMCA's provisions will have negative ramifications.
coding is life
No. Valid means that it is a legally valid notice. If YouTube fails to comply with a notice, the noticee can sue them - a notice without any follow up is just a piece of paper. But if the noticee doesn't have the right to file the notice, or if the notice isn't valid, he's obviously not in any position to sue.
Companies like YouTube choose to comply with every DMCA notice they receive without checking because it's easier and safer for them.
'At the moment, Christianity isn't run for profit (Roman Catholic church notwithstanding).'
When was the last time that you attended a members meeting for any curch? They always try to run at a profit, in North America anyway. I can vouch for this having been a 'Member in Good Standing' of the Protestant Church.
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
I agree with you on 'pants', but 'bollocks' dates back a long way. It's a great word that covers a multitude of situations.
This is the problem with laws. Every lawyer everywhere gets paid enormous amounts of money to drive trucks thru pigeonholes.
It could be mostly automatic. The search would be simple:
http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos?vq=scientology&start-index=1&max-results=50
Just repeat for different start-index values and slightly different searches, and you can easily rack up a few thousand unique videos.
Mr. Period: Nine is the one that's right by ten!
Nine: One day I will kill him. Then, I will be Ten.
It's been done already. When a law becomes a toy for fifteen year olds, we have a problem.