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Man defeats Viacom in DMCA takedown dispute

14 September 2007 19:07 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 3 comments

Viacom has backed down from a DMCA takedown notice over a video posted to YouTube by a school board candidate in North Carolina after he filed a counter-complaint stating that the content posted to the viral video site belonged to hiim.

Last year Christopher Knight ran a television ad promoting his candidacy for local office. After seeing a big reaction to the ad on television, he decided to post it to YouTube. That's where the story gets interesting. After the video showed up on YouTube it also appeared on a television show called Web 2.0 on Viacom owned VH-1.

Despite not being asked for permission to air the clip, Knight was excited about the exposure, saying "I'm delighted that as a proud son of Rockingham County, I got worldwide exposure for this."

Unfortunately, when he returned the favor and posted his video's Web 2.0 appearance on YouTube, Viacom wasn't nearly as flattered. That's when they they sent YouTube a DMCA takedown notice for a video of their show arguably pirating Knight's work. While there was a small amount of video clearly owned by Viacom, most of it was Knight's own video, which Web 2.0 used without getting authorization first.

After Knight filed a successful counter complaint with YouTube to get the video restored, Viacom has decided to drop the issue for obvious reasons.

Despite the fair resolution to this particular situation, it's clearly an example for those who assume media companies are being honest when they make claims about rampant piracy. If their own lawyers can't figure out obvious cases like this one, how can we trust their claims about other fair use issues, most of which are highly debatable without a judge's decision.

Apparently they only believe in fair use when it comes to other people's intellectual property.

Sources:
The Register original story
The Register followup

Permalink to this article | Topic: Lawsuits & Legislation

YouTube employees uploaded unauthorized content? (10 October 2009)

Judge tells YouTube to turn over viewing logs to Viacom (3 July 2008)

CoreCodec issues and retracts DMCA claim over open source project (5 May 2008)

Viacom executive says DRM is the way of the future (2 October 2007)

US copyright official loves DMCA but admits she's not tech savvy (17 September 2007)

EFF sues Universal over DMCA takedown (25 July 2007)

Paramount has trailer removed from YouTube (10 July 2007)

Electric Slide creator calls off online takedown campaign (22 May 2007)

Google says Viacom is abusing DMCA (31 March 2007)

NFL violates DMCA with takedown notice (23 March 2007)

EFF, MoveOn.org sue Viacom over YouTube takedown notice (22 March 2007)

EFF takes on DMCA abusers (18 March 2007)

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Discuss this article!
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 15 September 2007 13:11
That is the weirdest turn of event i have ever seen. [ + quote]
RNR1995 (Inactive) 21 September 2007 5:29
Typical corporation, I can steal from you, but if you fairly use what I have then that is wrong! [ + quote]
emugamer (Member) 21 September 2007 8:16
*Originally posted by RNR1995:* Typical corporation, I can steal from you, but if you fairly use what I have then that is wrong! Yeah, same thoughts regarding the labels who use piracy statistics to run their business model. Another classic example of bitting the hand that feeds you. [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 21 September 2007 8:17