A while back, there was a bit of a "kefuffle" on You Tube when an Evolutionist named Thunderfoot did a 30-part series aimed at explaining, scientifically, the errors in common creationist claims.

One of the creationists that he chose was a young guy named VenomFangX, a very popular Christian apologist and fan of the Discovery Institute.

In these videos, Thunderfoot used clips of VenomFangX's work, for the purposes of commentary and criticism. VenomFangX filed a false DMCA claim against Thunderfoot, and the videos were removed by YouTube. Basically, it looked a lot like VenomFangX couldn't argue Thunderfoots points, so he decided to have Thunderfoot silenced instead.

Thunderfoot lawyered up, and when he found out he had a case, he went to VenomFangX and explained that filing a false DMCA claim against someone was serious business and would likely run into a lot of money and trouble for VenomFangX. Who, it turns out, is a young kid who probably doesn't need to spend the rest of his life burdoned from mistakes he made while romping around on the internet.

VenomFangX made an abject apology, and withdrew the claims, and Thunderfoot let him off the hook. It was all very civilized and admirable. I expect that VenomFangX will profit from the experience.

Now, I guess the Discovery Institute filed a DMCA claim against a guy named DonExodus2 for commenting on one of Casy Luskin's interviews. Fox interviewed Luskin, and in true fashion of most of the modern news media, they just invited the creationist on unchalleneged by any opposing side, and just let him talk and talk without having to deal with a single critical comment. Even when they have someone on to represent evolution, it is rarely an evolutionary biologist. It is usually somone who is friendly to evolution, but not knowledgeable, so they give away a lot of points that would have been taken by a scientist.

 So anyway, this guy decided that he would provide the critical commentary for the interview, and post it on YouTube. This is a common thing on You Tube, all sorts of people provide critical commentary on video content of others. 

DonExodus2 now reports that Discovery Institute has filed a DMCA claim against the video, and that his YouTube account was in danger of being closed. His position is that FOX News owns the rights to the material, not the Discovery Institute, so the claim is fraudulant. Also, that his commentary is protected under several exception clauses in the DMCA including being commetary, criticism, educational, and non-profit.

I think he made a couple of mistakes.

1) He made it clear that any damages he seeks are purely for revenge against the DI for filing the claim, not for damages caused by them making a false claim against him.

2) He publicly calls their actions criminal even though he is not a lawyer, and the case has not yet been brought or decided.

3) He announced his intentions before he even retained council. The Discovery Institute has historically gotten a large slice of its funding from Howard Ahmanson, who is kind of the "sugar daddy" of the religious right (if your church was ever taken over by fundies, and you were kicked out, you can probably thank Howard Ahmanson; he has funded several organizations to do stuff like that). Anyway, deep pockets. Very deep pockets. They are probably already pre-lawyered, and prepared to obstruct this case until DonExodus2 runs out of money. The case will likely never make it to a decision, because even pro-bono lawyers have their limits.

4) He made his best argument before even bringing the case. So now, all the Discovery Institute has to do is to convince FOX News to file the DMCA claim instead. Anyone wanna take bets that they can convince FOX News to do that? Suddenly, he has to make a case against TWO adversaries with deeper pockets than him.

I don't know, maybe DonExodus2 is one of those novel fools willing to wreck his whole life for a hobby YouTube Channel. Personally, I think Thunderfoot's approach was classier, and I think it more thoroughly showed the weak and pathetic nature of the act of defending your position by trying to silence the opposition.

I have to laugh a little as Premise Media sucessfully defended their pro-Intelligent Design movie "Expelled" by arguing that the clip of John Lennon's "Imagine" that they used without permission was used for "criticism"...even though it was merely part of the sound track, and never mentioned, discussed, or critiqued. It was clearly just part of the sound-track.

Naturally, they viewed this as a false claim made merely to censor the film. At least Yoko Ono actually owned the rights to the thing she was filing the claim about. Premise Media won it's claim. Basically, playing the song against footage of Stalin amounts to "criticism" and exempts their use under DMCA exceptions. That's a pretty low bar. You can "critique" a song you don't like by playing it while showing a picture of someone you don't like.

How come everyone isn't a music critic? We could empty the welfare rolls. There is obviously a low bar for defense when it comes to DMCA exceptions, at least when it is creationists vs. the widows of pop icons from the '60's. We'll see about when it comes to evolutionists vs. creationist moneybags.

(Hat Tip: Pharyngula)