A nine-minute video featuring Tom Cruise excitedly proclaiming the virtues of Scientology was leaked onto the Internet. Gawker, YouTube, and other sites posted the video. The Church of Scientology's lawyers sent out cease-and-desist letters and emails to a range of re-publishers, most of whom removed the video. Gawker Media refused to comply.

On January 15, 2008, the Church of Scientology (through counsel) sent an email to Gawker Media alleging that posting the video on Gawker and Defamer (another Gawker Media site) violated its copyright and demanding its removal. The Church also asserted that "several criminal laws are implicated since this work was stolen," citing theft (California Penal Code 484 et seq); receiving stolen property (California Penal Code 496); and interstate transporting or transmission of stolen goods (18 U.S.C. 2314), but did not directly accuse Gawker of committing any of these criminal offenses.

Gawker responded to the Church via email, rebuffing the criminal claims and asserting fair use:

We are using this video in the context of news reporting and critical commentary, which are uses that may not be authorized by your client, but which serve the public interest. For this, and other reasons, we believe our use is fair. We further do not accept that we have broken any criminal laws in publishing it, and in any event, several of the statutes you cite are inapplicable in this case.

The video is still posted on Gawker, and the Church is believed to be considering legal action.

Lawyers for the musician formerly known, and now currently known, as Prince have sent cease-and-desist letters and at least one DMCA takedown notice to the three largest Prince fansites, Prince.org, Princefams.com, and Housequake.com, demanding that they remove all photographs, images, lyrics, album covers, and anything linked to Prince's likeness.

The fan sites were also requested to provide Prince's lawyers with "substantive details of the means by which you propose to compensate our clients [Paisley Park Enterprises, NPG Records and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG)] for damages."

The fansites formed a coalition, Prince Fans United (PFU), which has issued a press release saying that the letter campaign goes too far, effectively stifling critical commentary and impinging on freedom of speech. It does not appear that a lawsuit been initiated.

Update:

3/13/2008 - Prince Fans United reported that negotiations between the coalition and Prince were at a standstill for unknown reasons.

In November 2006, BoingBoing reported that its Canadian-based ISP received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice from Michael Crook requesting that BoingBoing remove a screengrab of him from a Fox News channel program "Hannity and Colmes" that BoingBoing posted on its blog. Crook had appeared on the Fox program to talk about a website he created, "craigslist-perverts.org," that contains responses sent to fake personal ads posted on Craigslist.

Crook's takedown notice appears to be self-created, and alleges (by all appearances, erroneously) that Crook owns the copyright in the screengrab, which BoingBoing had taken from a program produced and broadcast by Fox News.

BoingBoing characterized the takedown notice as "bogus" and refused to remove the image from its blog. It says that all copyright in the image resides in Fox, which has expressed no concerns about its reuse of the image, and in any event BoingBoing's use of the image falls squarely within fair use. Prioritycolo.com, the upstream provider to BoingBoing's ISP, replied to Crook that it considered the notice to be illegitimate.

This is not the first DMCA takedown notice Crook has sent. The Electronic Frontier Foundation launched and settled a legal action against Crook for sending an allegedly vexatious takedown notice to the ISP for 10 Zen Monkeys complaining about that website's use of the same image. As part of the settlement, Crook agreed to recall the takedown notices, take a copyright law course, and record a video apology. (For more information on the case, see the CMLP database entry for Crook v. 10 Zen Monkeys.)

In May 200, Explorologist Limited, a company incorporated in the United Kingdown by paranormalist Uri Geller, brought a lawsuit against Brian Sapient, a member of the Rational Response Squad. The dispute revolved around two videos posted by Sapient on YouTube. One video was a clip from a NOVA television program "Secrets of Psychics," in which magician James Randi challenges the performance techniques of Geller ("NOVA clip"). The NOVA clip allegedly incorporates images from a film of Geller performing at a charity event in England, the copyrights to which were assigned by the film-maker to Explorologist. According to Sapient, this portion of the NOVA clip lasts only eight seconds. The second video showed Sapient himself discussing Geller's performances ("Sapient clip").

Explorologist sued Sapient in federal court in Pennsylvania, alleging that posting the NOVA clip violated its UK copyright in the charity performance film, and that Sapient defamed the company and Geller in their trade (commercial disparagement) and misapproriated Geller's name and likeness "for his own benefit and commercial purpose." Sapient moved to dismiss the lawsuit, and in October 2007 the court dismissed the commercial disparagement claim for failure to properly plead damages with specificity. The court refused to dismiss the other claims, but expresed its initial reservations about whether the claim against Sapient is actionable under UK copyright law, because it is derivative on a claim against YouTube, whose server is located outside the UK.

Update:

2/15/2008 - Explorologist moved to dismiss the case due to its inability to produce a foreign witness for a deposition in Philadelphia.

2/22/2008 - Sapient moved for leave to file an amended answer and counterclaims against Explorologist.

6/3/2008 - Court ruled that Explorologist's motion to dismiss and Sapient's motion to file an amended answer will be heard, if necessary, after settlement negotiations are completed.

8/4/08 -  The parties settled the lawsuit.  As part of the settlement, Explorologist agreed to license the disputed footage under a non-commercial CC license, to avoid future disputes about fair use of the material. A montetary settlement was reached, but the terms are not public.