Last month I blogged about the Electronic Frontier Foundation asking a US federal court to protect the free speech rights of MoveOn.org Civic Action and Brave New Films after their satirical send-up of The Colbert Report was allegedly removed from YouTube following a copyright complaint from Viacom (see here). SiliconValley.com now reports that the lawsuit has been dropped:
Activist groups dropped a federal lawsuit against Viacom Inc. on Monday after the parent of Comedy Central acknowledged it made a mistake by asking YouTube to yank a parody of the cable network's "The Colbert Report."
Although the video in question contained clips taken from the television show, the groups argued that their use was protected under "fair use" provisions of copyright law, and thus Viacom shouldn't have asked YouTube to remove the item.
Viacom initially denied requesting the removal but later acknowledged it and said it was in error.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation declared victory in announcing that Viacom agreed to add information on its Web site about its stance on such parodies and to set up an e-mail address to receive complaints about possible errors in the future.
Viacom, however, sought to play down its concessions, saying the lawsuit's dismissal was a recognition of "the effective processes we have consistently applied." In a statement, Viacom said the lawsuit "could have been avoided" had the groups contacted the company ahead of time.
Read more here. And here is the "offending" video:
