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Viacom's DMCA takedown notices continue to generate controversy. The media giant fired off more than 100,000 notices to YouTube earlier this year, but it appears to have caught numerous legitimate videos in the crossfire. One of those clips, called "Stop the Falsiness," satirizes comedian Stephen Colbert, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a federal lawsuit against Viacom, asking the judge to declare the video non-infringing. The video, which was produced by left-wing advocacy group MoveOn, pokes fun both at Colbert and at MoveOn's own activism. It was uploaded to YouTube in August of 2006, but Viacom demanded that it be taken down and said under threat of perjury that its copyright was being violated by the clip. The video does contain clips from "The Colbert Report," but the EFF argues that these qualify as fair use, since parody has a well-recognized copyright exemption. "Our clients' video is an act of free speech and a fair use of 'Colbert Report' clips," said EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry in a statement sent to Ars Technica. "Viacom knows this—it's the same kind of fair use that 'The Colbert Report' and 'The Daily Show' rely upon every night as they parody other channels' news coverage."
