Saturday, February 3, 2007

Responses to Viacom's Indiscriminant, Ridiculous DMCA Takedown Notices Begin to Appear

I have been wondering exactly how to even begin to cogently think about the
sheer audacity and absolute lack of regard for the law
shown by Viacom in sending 100,000 DMCA takedown notices for a little while now. Before I could, however, Cory did all of the thinking - and subsequent fuming - for me.
And Google can take steps now to reduce that load: sue the living shit out of Viacom. We've got precedent -- the Diebold debacle -- for the idea that abusing the DMCA takedown process is illegal. Courts have been willing to punish this kind of excess by awarding fees and damages.

Now it turns out more and more people have had their videos taken down by these nastygrams. From Harvard Law prof John Palfrey:
In an e-mail from .sg, (which she said I could republish), Jaegercat writes: “My video ‘Beat Police’, an original work, was one of the ones on which Viacom is claiming copyright. … My video used to be here but is also here (and clearly not Viacom copyright). … The video itself took me 5 months to make. It containes 3D models made by third-parties, each of which is used with permission. … The song was written and performed by my husband and has no third-party components. … And yes, I can prove all of this as I have all original working files, and all of the licences giving right-to-use. … The video itself was shown in a film festival last year, as an original work, and the defamation in the Viacom/Youtube statement could therefore cause me real damage."
Link.

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