[NetBehaviour] Massive Takedown of Anti-Scientology Videos on YouTube.

[marc garrett]

Massive Takedown of Anti-Scientology Videos on YouTube.

News Update by Eva Galperin
http://tinyurl.com/6jwomn

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. Clips 
included footage of Australian and German news reports about 
Scientology, A Message to Anonymous/Scientology , and footage from a 
Clearwater City Commission meeting. Many accounts were suspended by 
YouTube in response to multiple allegations of copyright infringement.

YouTube users responded with DMCA counter-notices. At this time, many of 
the suspended channels have been reinstated and many of the videos are 
back up. Whether or not American Rights Counsel, LLC represents the 
notoriously litigious Church of Scientology is unclear, but this would 
not be the first time that the Church of Scientology has used the DMCA 
to silence Scientology critics. The Church of Scientology DMCA 
complaints shut down the YouTube channel of critic Mark Bunker in June, 
2008. Bunker's account, XenuTV, was also among the channels shut down in 
this latest flurry of takedown notices.

Other related links:

DMCA
http://www.eff.org/issues/dmca
No Downtime for Free Speech Campaign
http://www.eff.org/issues/ip-and-free-speech