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Fair Use Claim Filed In Dispute Over Anti-Muslim Remarks on YouTube

By Howard M. Friedman

According to the Los Angeles Metropolitan News-Enterprise, last Friday documentary film maker Robert Greenwald's company, Brave New Films (BNF), filed a federal lawsuit against talk radio host Michael Savage and Talk Radio Network (TRN) that syndicates Savage's show. Last January, BNF uploaded to its channel on YouTube a video titled "Michael Savage Hates Muslims." The video criticized Savage, and included one minute of audio excerpts from a Savage broadcast in which Savage denigrates Muslims. TRN sent a "takedown notice" to YouTube, demanding removal of the video, claiming it infringed its copyright. This lawsuit, filed in response in the Northern District of California, seeks a declaration that the video made fair use of the copyrighted material. It also seeks damages for misrepresentations TRN made in the takedown notice. It cites as a basis for its claim an earlier fair use ruling in a lawsuit by Savage against CAIR for using audio clips from the same broadcast.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on October 16, 2008 (boomark / email).