Faith Healer Adam Miller Sues Over Critical YouTube Video, Guaranteeing It Tons Of Attention

Oh boy. Today in Streisanding, we've got a lawsuit filed by Adam Miller, a faith healer, against Stephanie Guttormson, supposedly over claims of copyright infringement and defamation, though neither claim holds up under much scrutiny. Instead, this looks like a typical SLAPP suit, in which Miller is upset about a video that mocks him and his faith healing and decides to sue over it. Enter Stresiand Effect. The video is currently up, and the view count is rapidly escalating. At the time the lawsuit was filed (according to the lawsuit) it had about 1,500 views. Now it's much more: There's nothing too surprising in the video, but it basically uses one of Miller's own promotional videos and intersperses some commentary and criticism. The lawsuit... is... well... a joke. First, he claims copyright infringement, though this is pretty obviously fair use. It's being used for criticism and commentary, and in order to make that work, it needs to show clips of the video. Miller's lawyer tries, weakly, to present a few arguments to try to get around fair use, including arguing that it's commercial use. Of course, as we keep repeating, commercial use does not mean that you can't have fair use. Tons of fair use involves commercial use. And, even given that, it's ridiculous to argue that this is "commercial use." The best the lawsuit can do is claim that the inclusion at the end of the video of a couple of "advertisements" makes it commercial. That, alone, probably isn't even enough to claim this is "commercial use," (which is generally more about selling the actual work or directly profiting). Plus, it's not even accurate. The "advertisements" aren't really advertisements at all, but rather a friendly acknowledgement of who sent her the video, with a link to that guy's own website and audio bookstore, with a mention that Guttormson appears on that guy's podcast every so often. The lawsuit also claims too much of the original video was used, but there's little evidence to support that. Guttormson comments on basically every clip in the video, so it's hard to see how she's using "more of the original work than was necessary" as the lawsuit claims. The lawsuit also alleges, as part of the copyright claim, that "Guttormson is liable for the actual harm caused to Mr. Miller as a result of Guttormson’s infringement and statutory damages." That's an interesting claim, but completely bullshit in the copyright context. The "actual harm" has to be over the copyright. Unless there was "actual harm" in Miller no longer being able to license/sell that video to a third party because they felt they could see it all for free through Guttormson's video (a crazy claim), then there's no actual harm. If the commentary in Guttormson's video, which mocks Miller's wacky faith healing nonsense, created "actual harm," well, that's not a copyright issue and is unrelated to any copyright claim. The lawsuit also makes some claims about how the video itself was never actually released, but rather was password protected in Miller's wife's account. So the lawsuit alleges that Guttormson must have "hacked" into Eve Miller's account. In the video itself, however, as mentioned above, Guttormson notes that it was actually David Smalley who sent her the video. And while it's not entirely clear, from the comment threads under the video, it certainly sounds like Miller's video was most likely publicly available somewhere online. The evidence of "hacking" here seems really weak. And if there was hacking, the evidence that it was Guttormson is non-existent. As for the defamation claims... there are only two specific things called out in the lawsuit. The first is this:

As just one example, Guttormson explains what happens at an appointment with Mr. Miller, “You will be fed faith-based bullshit.” This statement is false and defamatory; Mr. Miller’s work does not require a client to hold any faith, and he has worked with non-believers and atheists.

Um. Okay, it appears that Miller's lawyer is misrepresenting what "faith-based" means in this context. Guttormson isn't saying that those seeing Miller are expected to "have faith in a certain religion." She's saying that the treatment by Miller is not evidence based but is based on someone's blind "faith" in Miller being able to actually do something. And, besides, Miller's own words show that he's pitching a bunch of faith-based quackery. In the video clip, he himself explains the process, noting talking first about how he talks to people who come to them about things that happened in their childhood, like "traumas" that might explain their illnesses (really) and then says:

And then after we get through this, we put them on the table, and great holy spirit comes and breaks up dark cellular structure that creates any illn