City Tries To Silence YouTube Critic By Suing For Copyright Infringement

This is a pretty stunning example of censorship by copyright -- from a literal government.

Joseph Teixeira is a critic of the mayor of Inglewood, California, James Butts. As is common among people with more than a passing interest in local politics, Teixeira takes clips of videos of city council meetings -- which are available on YouTube -- and posts them to YouTube, overlaying them with his own commentary and words. Teixeira, who goes by the name "Dehol Trouth" (get it?), runs a website called "Anybody But James Butts For Anything" and, when he's not caustically criticizing Mayor Butts, likes to make fun of the way he plays with his tie. Here's one of the videos:

Whether Teixeira's criticism has any merit, I don't know. He comes across as articulate and well-researched, lacking an "I attend every city council meeting to rant about chemtrails" feel. I do know this: it's awfully hard for a public official to sue for defamation.

But of course Mayor Butts isn't afraid of a few YouTube videos viewed by a couple hundred people -- people who probably don't even live in Inglewood and were just searching for a Snoop Dogg video. After all, Mayor Butts, won his last election by the largest margin in the city's history. So the best thing to do would be to ignore the guy, right?

Of course it would. But that's not what Mayor Butts and his fellow councilcritters did. Rather, they enlisted the resources of the city they govern to sue Teixeira for copyright infringement. Here's the complaint. In its path to censoring Teixeira, the City of Inglewood makes some pretty surprising false statements, on top of being completely and utterly wrong on the law.

Teixeira moved to dismiss the lawsuit with two arguments. First, he argues that the city can't even own a copyright because California law -- which requires the city to provide a copy of the video at only the cost of reproducing it to anyone who asks -- doesn't permit a city to hold a copyright in this kind of record. And that's what this is: a record of a city council meeting. Second, Teixeira argues that if there is a copyright interest, this is a classic fair use. After all, he's a citizen making fifteen-minute videos that include snippets of meetings that last up to four hours, and doing so to criticize his elected officials. On top of that, he's not getting any money for it. It's hard to think of a clearer example of fair use.

The City of Inglewood, represented by a seasoned IP litigation attorney who should really know better, responded with one of the most transparently-wrong briefings I've ever encountered -- and I read pro se ramblings as a hobby.

First, Inglewood argues that it can have a copyright interest because that case cited by Teixeira was argued by the same international law firm that represents Teixeira now, and something about the Supremacy Clause. Second, Inglewood states -- with a straight face -- that Teixeira's 15-minute videos appropriate the entire "work"... which is usually about four hours long. Worse, according to Inglewood, adding criticism over clips of these videos doesn't transform them from being what they were (boring bloody videos of city council meetings documenting people who probably wish they were playing Candy Crush, and would be if the meeting weren't on video) into something else, like pointed political criticism. Plus, Teixeira is somehow using the video for a "commercial" purpose, although Inglewood just sort of states this without any explanation whatsoever.

lol:

Defendant merely republished substantially all of Plaintiff's unaltered videotapes of its Council meetings, with Defendant's derogatory comments overlaid on top. This is not transformative in the least. [...] Transformativeness is not about a defendant's subjective intent; it is about 'add[ing] something new.'

A lawyer facing a poor set of facts might be forgiven for arguing nonsense