A federal court in Massachusetts has ruled that copyright holders can issue online takedown notices based on a subjective belief of copyright infringement, even when that belief is unreasonable and self-serving. The case was brought by our client, Channel 781 News, after takedown notices temporarily shut down the citizen journalism group's YouTube channel. We think the court set the bar far too low for copyright takedowns, and we plan to appeal.
Channel 781 is a group of independent, volunteer journalists who report on local affairs in Waltham, Massachusetts. That includes posting short, newsworthy excerpts from recordings of city government meetings produced by Waltham Community Access Corporation (WCAC), the city's public access television station.
In September 2023, WCAC sent three copyright takedown notices to YouTube targeting fifteen of Channel 781's videos. YouTube removed the videos and, under its three-strikes policy, temporarily disabled Channel 781's entire account—just days before a local election.
Represented by EFF and Brown Rudnick LLP,
Channel 781 sued WCAC under Section 512(f)
of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which provides a remedy when a copyright holder knowingly makes material misrepresentations in a takedown notice.
When Is a Copyright Holder Responsible for a Wrongful Takedown?
Fair use is the legal right to use copyrighted material without permission, when doing so serves purposes like criticism, commentary, or creating something new. Fair use is not copyright infringement, and courts have recognized that copyright holders
must consider fair use
before using the DMCA's powerful notice-and-takedown process.
In this case, Channel 781 argued that WCAC accused it of copyright infringement without making a good-faith assessment of whether its videos were fair use.
The evidence showed that WCAC's analysis was seriously deficient. The court noted that Chris Wangler, the WCAC employee who sent the notices, didn’t cons
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