Viacom v. Christopher Knight

Christopher Knight made a clever video while running for his local school board. He posted his video on Youtube and then Viacom took his video without his permission and used it on their show, Web Junk 2.0.

This didn't bother Knight at all. In fact, he was so delighted that Viacom had used his video that he posted a short clip of the Viacom coverage of his video on Youtube.

You might think that Viacom would have expressed gratitude toward Knight for letting them use his video free of charge for their for-profit television show. Perhaps you might have expected a multi-billion dollar company like Viacom to give him a complimentary movie ticket, or buy him dinner at a local restaurant Maybe they would give him a free DVD. At the very least, you'd think they'd send him a thank you note after using his video and after he helped publicize their Web Junk 2.0 by posting a clip from it on Youtube.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! YOU FOOL!!!

Of course they didn't thank him. Instead, they sent Youtube a DMCA notice demanding that the clip he posted from Web Junk 2.0--the clip that was based on his video--be taken down. Here is how Knight described the situation:

So Viacom took a video that I had made for non-profit purposes and without trying to acquire my permission, used it in a for-profit broadcast. And then when I made a YouTube clip of what they did with my material, they charged me with copyright infringement and had YouTube pull the clip. . . .

That's what's happening to me right now, folks. Viacom is penalizing me for using my own original material, which they used without permission to begin with.

Fortunately, Youtube restored the video after Knight filed a DMCA counternotice.

This incident illustrates the topsy turvy world of the DMCA and Youtube's blind enforcement of it. Imagine this scenario. You've posted a video and you are quite proud of a particularly clever or dramatic piece of monolog. Then a few months later, someone else makes a video blog, using that same piece of monolog, word for word, without attributing you as the source.

Now your pissed. Some scoundrel has plagiarized you, and you decide to expose him. So you take a clip of your video and you juxtapose it with a clip of the scoundrels video and you put your expose up on Youtube. Only the scoundrel doesn't like being exposed, so he sends in a DMCA notice to get your expose removed.

You file a counternotice, and the scoundrel sends a note to Youtube saying that he is suing you for copyright. And Youtube will refuse to put your video back up. And if its your third "infraction", you may even lose your account because of the incident. And the only words you were reciting were your own.

The only proper way to treat a plagiarist is to expose him. Oh, you could send a DMCA notice to Youtube to get the scoundrel's video removed, but then no one will have the proof that he is a plagiarist. And the only way to prove someone is a plagiarist is to use a clip of his vide and compare it with your original video. Well, you could call him a plagiarist and provide a link to his video instead of using a clip of him using your words, but then he could just remove his video and the proof of the plagiarism would disappear. As things stand, you can plagiarize with impunity, knowing that Youtube has your back and they will be more than happy to help you bury the evidence of your misdeeds if you send in a false DMCA.

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