The YouTube Copyright Claim Process, currently the focus of negative media coverage because of its allowance of fraudulent takedowns of videos allegedly under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), was used against Chevron in the matter of Ecuador – fraudulently.
The Spanish firm Ares Rights filed a YouTube Copyright Claim against 4 videos on the Texaco Ecuador YouTube channel that is controlled and ran by Chevron. The claim was that all of the material from the movie Crude, which focused on the lawsuit against Chevron for allegedly polluting in the Ecuador Amazon region from 1967 to 1992 (when Ecuador itself was to blame for the oil spill damage), was uploaded by Chevron against copyright law – that was not true.
The fact is, the Chevron videos met the four-fold test to determine if fair use law applies to a case in the matter of YouTube videos. First, the videos told a news commentary, making them “transformationa’.” Second, the videos did not hamper the market for the movie Crude. Third, the video materials were based on Crude, which was a published and factually real movie – not fiction. And finally, the videos used only seconds of a movie that was almost two hours long.
It was with those arguments that Chevron won yet another case in this on-going battle between it and Ecuador. Ecuador’s unwilling to take blame for the environmental damage it has done to itself in the chase for petrodollars. To that end of cover-up, it censors (or tries to) anyone who talks against its efforts and related actions of Equador President Rafael Correa.
In fact the blog TechDirt reports a history of Internet censorship done by Ares Rights on behalf of Ecuador. Ares Right’s efforts even include a take down of a photo of a woman Ecuador’s communications secretary, Fernando Alvarado, was sleeping with.
Ares Rights also initiated a DMCA take down of a documentary that was not kind to President Correa – who has been known to jail reporters for perceived slights against him.
Yowza!
Stay tuned.