Before I start, there will be many Youtube videos on this post, some of which you may have to watch. I will be sure to keep it at a reasonable amount though. The videos are provided for those that don't have a clue as to what I am going on about.
It all starts a week ago with this video:
VenomFangX (or Posterboy for Creationist Stupidity, PCS for short), decided to file DMCA claims against Thunderf00t because, as far as I can tell, Thunderf00t had the gall to use portions of VFX's videos for the purposes of education.
That falls under "Fair Use" of US copyright law, since we all know that the internet is under the jurisdiction of the United States. Actually I don't have a clue on legal matters and jurisdiction, I think it has more to do with where the webiste itself is and not the individual Youtube user.
At the time, Thunderf00t responded with the following video:
And then when more information came up this one:
The second video here is actually an important one. We learn that another Youtube user who filed a bunch of DMCA claims on VFX behalf actually said that Thunderf00t most likely wasn't breaking the law.
A couple of days ago Thunderf00t posted the following video:
Which outlines a case involving a guy called Crook, who had to read an apology for his actions online. It sounded like there wasn't going to be too much VFX and Thunderf00t facing each other in court, and more of VFX having to read an apology.
As a side note, he mentions a user called LiberalViewer, part 1 of his videos on him and Viacom can be found here.
This has divided people. There are people who want to see VFX fry and there are people who agree with Thunderf00t.
kurtilein3 is one of the VFX should fry group:
Now I do agree with much of what he has to say. He has a good point, VFX broke the law and he should be punished.
It also raises the good question of what is a foreigner supposed to do if their videos are DMCA'd. What exactly are we supposed to do? Do we have to hire a lawyer in the US or is there some provision in the DMCA for such a problem?
There are quite a few flaws with the DMCA, but I'm not going to get into that.
Essentially VFX deserves to face a punishment for willingly breaking the law.
themaskedanalyst, however makes a very, very good point:
At present I am swayed by his argument. (a response specifically to kurtilein3 can be found here.
In kurtilien3's case, he has been rather annoyed at the censorship that goes on at Youtube and their lax policy of actually determining whether a video is breaking copyright or not. Especially since ExtantDodo has been suspended again.
I don't know about the other VFX should fry people, but kurtilein3 seems to be of the opinion that DE was affected by the VFX DMCA spree (the linked video thinks Creation Sceince Evangelism, Kent Hovind's people who would be more likely be the culprits here).
However I am confused at the moment because of the lack of information regarding the Thunderf00t/VFX situation. Since we haven't actually heard anything from Thunderf00t, we don't know the details of the settlement at all.
I'm confused as to my course of action. I can't choose a side here.
There is one thing that I am certain of. I don't support the "flag the VFX apology video" idea from kurtilein3 without knowing all the details first. At present that is a stupid idea because we don't know enough about the settlement.
I agree that the video would be humbling, but I do want to see VFX answer to a court because of his actions.
The one thing that I do want to know about this apology is whether he will have to allow free commenting on that video instead of the moderation that he currently uses to censor dissent from his videos.
No comments:
Post a Comment