Well surprise surprise, creationist abuse the DMCA to silence their critics.  And it’s the brainiacs at CSE, thats Hovind Jnr and cronies, that have been out doing it.  Now I don’t know exactly how many they’ve hit but SkepticTV has heard of 3 smaller you tube channels in the past week that have been hit with false DMCA’s.  The first of them being our own BluJugganaut, he had two or three taken down, all critiques containing short clips from various episodes of Creation Today, all within fair use for commentary and the like so all falsely DMCAed.

Blu shrugs this off, he’s at uni and the counter notice is a chore whilst he’s not got regular internet access and uni work to do.  I know other people might have encouraged him to press the counter notice but it’s his call.  So anyway, press on a few days and I get a message on skype from a fellow you tube geologist (if that counts as a description – but I digress), he’s asking to come in and chat to us as someone’s been falsely DMCAed and our help is needed.  So in I bring him and guess what he tells us, no really, have a guess…….

 

 

 

 

 

If you guessed that CSE had hit someone else with a false DMCA then you’d be right, well done and promptly award yourself 10 Womble points!  This person is a smaller channel, another you tube geologist as it happens, that had a video containing some Creation Today footage for the purposes of comment and critique, again all under fair use.  Orge is the chaps name and he has not only filed a counter claim to this but he’s contacted them as well, here’s what he had to say to them:

One of my videos, entitled “Creation Today being idiots” was flagged by you (cseministry) and taken down by youtube. I used video clips from your show (Creation today Week 7/28/11) and made responses to them. I assumed criticism was acceptable, but I guess not. I cited your video as the original work and even put a link in the description box so viewers could see the full unedited work. I enjoy my work and the videos I put up and would like to continue to do so. If you have advice for me as to a better way to discuss the topics brought up in your videos your input would be greatly appreciated. If you do not want to encourage free discussion and open exchange of ideas then I guess you can censor videos discussing topics that you do not approve of. Should I of re-aired the full video (with citation to you) and comments…would that of helped. Perhaps audio only? Or are you here to stifle conversation about science and geology. If you thought my points were fallacious, flagging the video is not an appropriate means of engaging the conversation. If you were worried that I was taking business from you (my video didn’t even have 100 total views), then perhaps responding to my claims would have been more appropriate and fruitful. I will be talking with people and seeing what are my best courses of action.

I admit I used your work.
I never took credit for it.
I cited YOU as the creator.

A response would be fantastic. I in no way want to bring this to the courts or anything grandiose like that. I am simply a YouTuber looking for answers.

Permission to publish? Yes

—

Tootles

They were also blessed with a reply, you can read that here:

Your comments are noted.

His comments were noted?  Really?  Does he not warrent a little more than that?  I guess the people as CSE think they’re above such things as following the law correctly.  Not to cast aspertions (or however you spell it) on anyones character we certainly know that Hovind Snr thought he was above paying taxes…..but then reality caught up on him didn’t it.  But anyway, I think this reply from CSE is shocking, it shows (to me at least) that they don’t think Orge’s comments are worthy of any attention.

So as we’re chatting away and finding about Orge’s dealins and swapping notes about Blu’s it turns out that another youtuber, again a smaller channel, has been hit with a false DMCA.  This time it’s a you tuber called Pilgrimpater, the current video on his channel is about this.  I’ve been in e-mail contact with Pilgrimpater and whilst he knows a counter claim is what he should do in an ideal world, especially as in his case he’d win.  However there’s a genuine concern for him in filing a counter claim so he’s having to opt not to do that, which is a shame (that he feels he can’t counter claim) however I will stand by him and his right not to.

This whole thing does make me wonder though.  So far three channels have been hit, but given that this is in the space of a week I wonder if there have been any more or if this is the start of a spree of DMCA abuse that CSE is about to embark on.  At the moment I don’t know, but I’d be very greatful if people could let us know if anyone else has been hit and we can try and work out who’s been hit and who might be hit.

In the mean time if you arn’t subbed to any of the channels mentioned and would like to show your support I’m sure they’ed appreciate the subs.  And spread the word about this, copy the link to friends or make video’s or blog posts about it yourself.  The quicker we can spread this the quicker we can circumvent what CSE are trying to do, and that is stiffle people that are correcting and debunking them.  Lets get some light shining on what they’re doing and expose them for the cretinous tactics that they’re using.

Womble