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YouTube Reposts Anti-Scientology Videos
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:38 AM
from the fun-and-easy-to-destroy-stuff dept.
from the fun-and-easy-to-destroy-stuff dept.
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."
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4,000 Anti-Scientology Videos Yanked From YouTube 658 comments
An anonymous reader writes "From the EFF webpage: 'Over a period of twelve hours, between this Thursday night and Friday morning, American Rights Counsel LLC sent out over 4000 DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, all making copyright infringement claims against videos with content critical of the Church of Scientology.'"
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Should be worth pressing charges. (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't one count, it's about four thousand counts of fraud. I'm sure that complying with the takedown notices cost Google a non-trivial amount of money, too.
-jcr
Re:Should be worth pressing charges. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an arguable criminal case and a criminal prosecution would be a waste of time. It is going to be near impossible to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt.
It is, however, a clear abuse of rights granted by the copyright law. The fitting punishment is revocation of those rights.
Please save the nitpicking arguments about if there is such thing as copyright "rights", that is beside the point. If a child can't be trusted with privileges, you take those privileges away.
Parent
Re:Should be worth pressing charges. (Score:5, Interesting)
revoking the copyrights would be moronic.
if that's all it took, then people would start posting fake notices (ie committing fraud) for the groups they OPPOSE, thus preventing the legitimate copyright holder from keeping their copyright.
punish the criminal.
in this case that is whoever sent the notices.
Parent
Re:Should be worth pressing charges. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. It might be economically worth their time for Google to set the precedent that bogus DMCA notices en masse will lead to a lawsuit, so that they can limit the number of staff they'll have to hire to handle requests.
Parent
Re:Should be worth pressing charges. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Now I'm left wondering if it was even them that sent them out in the first place.
Does anyone know anything about the "group" that sent them, and is there anything that actually ties it to them?
For all the reasons they'd have to do it, there's also a lot of people who'd like to embarrass that group by acting in their name.
Parent
Take that Xenu! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm glad that the YouTube users fought back.
We really need to make people aware of the criminal actions of this cult.
Teach them a lesson (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Teach them a lesson (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, it would be "prosecute", not sue, as this is a criminal offense, and requires a criminal prosecution.
All nitpicking aside though, I agree. It sounds like the crazy Scientologists are at it again, and SOMEONE needs to take those crazies down a few notches.
Parent
Isn't it also illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just to file fraudulant DMCA notices, but also to do so in the name of a Business that doesn't exist? I'd think someone, somewhere would want to take this opportunity to finally push back and sue for false allegations filed by a fradulant company in the name of an entity that was not part of the original notice. Might make a statement, (especially from YouTube) that we won't simply allow people to negligently file take down notices on material they don't even own the copyright to.
Interesting case of censorship (Score:5, Interesting)
Earlier this year radio talk show host Michael Reagan called for the murder of Mark Dice [youtube.com] live on air. Mark Dice uploaded a 3 minute clip of the death threat to youtube. Reagan's lawyers filed a DMCA claim on the clip [jonesreport.com], youtube took down Mark Dice's entire channel which had a lot of original content and over a million views. Dice tried to counter claim but youtube did NOT reinstate his channel. Dice had to make a new channel and upload his content back.
The FBI or police would not charge Reagan for his death threats and Reagan is still on the air.
Google Should Sue (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why the prosecution monopoly is bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone should be able to bring evidence to a judge, and bring charges against someone in a felony or serious misdemeanor case. If someone shuts down your YouTube account via false DMCA notices, and a US Attorney won't take it, you should be able to hire your own prosecutor to press charges against the individual.
You know one major reason why this would be hard as hell to get passed? Because if it were passed it would not only pressure legislatures to write better, more consistent legal codes, but it would allow for pesky things like drug cops in cases like Kathryn Johnston's shooting death to be tried for manslaughter, perjury in securing the warrant and criminal negligence leading to injury or death.
Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
They now have the names and addresses of the posters who responsed with DMCA counter-notices, and those individuals are now free to be "fair-gamed".
Re:Racial Bigotry (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew they claimed to be a religion, but I wasn't aware that Scientologists now claimed to be a "race"...
Was this done to claim additional protections?
Parent
Re:Racial Bigotry (Score:5, Insightful)
I meant that they probably want to portray themselves as a "oppressed minority" or something like that...
Although I seriously doubt the ACLU would fall for it
Parent
Re:Racial Bigotry (Score:5, Insightful)
Great - another 600 bigoted posts about Scientology.
Scientology is a great, true faith. But you guys don't know anything about faith, do you.
I'm an atheist, and while I think the middle eastern religions are pretty horrid, Scientology is pure insanity. Xenu? DC10s? Thetans?
LOL, psyco.
Parent
Re:Racial Bigotry (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, you mean the crap they showed on South Park was really was these people believe?!
Parent
Re:Racial Bigotry (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re:Racial Bigotry (Score:5, Funny)
To be completely fair, they were DC-8s.
Parent
Re:Racial Bigotry (Score:5, Funny)
Yea, DC-10s just makes no sense at all!
Parent
Re:First? (Score:5, Funny)
Is there some kind of rule that if it's in a hyperlink, it's spelled 'DCMA', but if it's plain text, it's 'DMCA'?
Get with the program. Today is Transposed Tuesday.
Parent
Re:First? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! I am behind on my Ubuntu distro then. I am still on the J's.
Parent
Re:Of course. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Southpark's Scientology Video (Score:5, Informative)
Here is their own link
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103804/ [southparkstudios.com]
Parent
Re:What's with the scientology hatred? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent