Viacom Admits Error-Takes Steps To Protect Fair Use

Bilal Hameed | 20 Views

EFF Viacom Logo
A short while back Viacom slapped Youtube with a massive DMCA notice asking them to take down 100,000 copyrighted videos from the site. Youtube acted swiftly and took down all those videos mentioned in the notice. However the move resulted in a removal of a video called “Stop the Falsiness”, that was a parody of “The Colbert Report”, which according to Fair Use Doctrine does not fall under the copyright act. The video was created by MoveOn.org. Electronics Frontier Foundation and Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project decided to take the legal battle to Viacom suing them for infringing fair use act.

Viacom initially denied sending the takedown notice for this particular video, but later admitted that it had sent the notice and that it had been a mistake. Not only this Viacom has agreed to take the necessary steps to protect fair use:

In the course of discussions with EFF and FUP, Viacom described the steps it endorses for protecting fair use and free expression as it targets copyright infringement on Internet video sites. This includes: manual review of every video that is a potential DMCA takedown target, training reviewers to avoid issuing takedown requests for fair use, and publicly stating that it does not challenge use of Viacom materials that are “creative, newsworthy or transformative” and are “a limited excerpt for non commercial purposes.”

This has resulted in the lawsuit against Viacom being dropped by EFF. The move is a big win for users and the first acceptance of creative acts as fair use, by a big media group. Another potent question that will be raised now is “How many more of those 100,000 videos were actually legit ?”. I am sure Viacom will be forced to review the list once again. Marshall Kirkpatrick made a very valid point by saying “If copyright law shackles satire, we’ll lose one of the most potent ways to challenge people with power - making fun of them.”

Amidst all this Youtube traffic continues to grow as indicated by a study conducted after the take down notice from Viacom. Youtube is also working on a technology called “Claim Your Content“, to help protect copyrighted material from being uploaded illegally to Youtube.

Enjoy the video “Stop the Falsiness” below, Feed subscribers will have to click here.