So, we won a battle, but the insurgency is ongoing.
Remember that ‘Stop the Falsiness’ was not the only video removed during YouTube’s latest Viacom purge that should have been protected under the ‘fair use’ doctrine. Another notable ‘wipe out’ was the cancellation of LiberalViewer’s entire account apparently because he used brief clips of Viacom owned material in his editorial pieces. Not to mention the purging of home videos and almost anything that had the name ‘Colbert’ attached to it. I’m certain a few clips of ‘It Happened One Night’ must have been caught up in that one too.
As our Senior Washington Correspondent Ms Interpreted expressed so well yesterday, the case against Viacom brought by MoveOn.org and BraveNew Films has important implications involving free speech and political discourse.
Some of us might even suspect that this case and Viacom’s suit against Google are both aimed at forcing an overhaul of the DMCA, albeit for different reasons.
Ms Interpreted has made other posts about the case against Viacom and here are places to look for more information.
- The Electronic Freedom Foundation, which is helping bring this lawsuit, has created a resources page which includes the original complaint and other documents and relevant links.
- Did Viacom send that take-down notice? Techdirt.com explains about a company called BayTSP – the ‘enforcer’ for for Viacom and others.
- What’s really at stake here? Some relevant editorials from RedOrbit.com and WebProNews.com.
- Is it time to overhaul DMCA? BoingBoing.com reports that the DMCA’s author himself thinks DMCA is a failure.
But hey, the video’s back and Viacom has stated publicly that they have no problem with it being on YouTube. So I assume this link is relatively permanent. Enjoy – David Brock makes me laugh every time!
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