WANTED: Attorney With Courage To Help Me Sue YouTube

Staring into the camera while being interviewed

August 21, 2012 - I am dead serious about this. If you're an attorney who feels strongly about free speech, and is opposed to the heavy-handed policies of YouTube that suppress conservatives, please contact me at __________ .

I believe that YouTube is in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Briefly: I interviewed an openly gay attorney (David Amen) who attended the anti-Chick-fil-A "kiss-in" in Chicago.

He consented to an interview on camera, which is obvious in the video. Somebody ("an individual," says YouTube) filed a violation of privacy complaint.

I contend that no privacy was violated and that YouTube violated their own TOS by not taking into account that this video is a newsworthy account of a news event.

The attorney was actually seeking publicity "to make a statement" against Chick-fil-A, which was why he was at the event. YouTube disabled my video interview.

A fuller explanation was already written at my post "Chick-fil-A Fallout - I Am Being Harassed For My Interview of Gay Attorney."
You can reach me at tom.mannis [at] facebook [dot] com

From Wikipedia: In August 2008 US District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, California ruled that copyright holders cannot order a deletion of an online file without determining whether that posting reflected "fair use" of the copyrighted material. The case involved Stephanie Lenz, a writer and editor from Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, who made a home video of her thirteen-month-old son dancing to Prince's song Let's Go Crazy and posted the video on YouTube. Four months later, Universal Music, the owner of the copyright to the song, ordered YouTube to remove the video enforcing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Lenz notified YouTube immediately that her video was within the scope of fair use, and demanded that it be restored. YouTube complied after six weeks, not two weeks as required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Lenz then sued Universal Music in California for her legal costs, claiming the music company had acted in bad faith by ordering removal of a video that represented fair-use of the song. [Source]