Global warming, legal chill

Climate sceptic blogger Anthony Watts has used a DMCA takedown to block Peter Sinclair’s video “Watts Up With Watts?” on YouTube.

The “Watt’s Up With Watts?” video on YouTube on July 28, 2009: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Anthony Watts Surfacestations.org .”

Legal actions and threats of legal action are being used with ever greater frequency by quacks, complementary medicine practitioners, cults and corporations ^[1] to stifle scientific criticism of their claims. It’s a worrying trend.

In fact there’s a libel claim against a science writer going through the English courts right now. The British Chiropractic Association is suing the science journalist Simon Singh over an article he wrote in The Guardian ^[1]. I’m following that case with some concern – I’ve just looked at the story in my post “Simon Singh battles England’s amboguous libel laws”.

That case is not a one-off though, it’s only the most recent example. Last year vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath sued The Guardian and its columnist Ben Goldacre over an article Goldacre had written. The article criticised Rath’s claims about vitamins as an AIDS remedy. Rath eventually dropped the case ^[2] [3] in September 2008.

Earlier his year, Goldacre got into a copyright tangle with LBC, a London radio station, over one of his blog posts. He had criticised an LBC broadcast about vaccines, but he was then forced to remove the audio clip of the broadcast from his blog following a claim of copyright infringement:

Three days ago, Goldacre [...] had posted the extract of a radio broadcast by LBC’s Jeni Barnett on his blog – a piece Goldacre believes ‘exemplifies every single canard ever uttered by the anti vaccination movement.’ He has now removed the offending audio after Global Radio lawyers contacted him to say it was an infringement of copyright. However, bloggers have been quick to upload the audio elsewhere.

Judith Townend,
journalism.co.uk, February 6, 2009 ^[4]

Goldacre had this to say about the copyright claim ^[4]:

“I suspect they [LBC] are intellectual property absolutists. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt because the alternative is that they wanted to silence discussion.”

Two years ago, Prof. David Colquhoun had to remove his blog from his university’s computers after threats of legal action by a herbalist. Those threats were partly based on claims of copyright violation. After an outcry from the scientific community, the university decided to back him and he got his blog hosting restored ^[5].

Goldacre – a very energetic defender of freedom of expression in scientific debate – said this about the threats against Colquhoun:

There is a more serious issue in the background, however. It strikes me that there is a sizeable cohort of people who sell themselves and their wares by making scientific claims, but then use bullying and legal threats when their claims and ideas are criticised. This to me is completely unacceptable.

Ben Goldacre,
Bad Science blog, June 13, 2007 ^[5]

From the examples above, we can see that claims of copyright infringement are one of the most popular ways to try to silence an internet critic. It’s a favourite tactic among pseudoscience cranks. It means they don’t have to try to defend their claims. They can just use legal procedures to shut down discussion.

Copyright Infringement Claim Against the “Watts Up With Watts?” Video

Over the last six months or so, Peter Sinclair has been producing a series of videos called “Climate Denial Crock of the Week”, in which he analyses climate denialist pseudoscience. He’s amassed about sixteen of these videos now.

He posts them on YouTube under the username Greenman3610, and the Greenfyre blog has collected them on a single page here: “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” ^[6].

A recent “Crock of the Week” video is called  “Watts Up With Watts?”  It examines the claims of a climate sceptic blogger called Anthony Watts.

Unfortunately, if you click on the link, you won’t be able to see the video. Instead, you’ll see the message

This video is no longer available due to a copyright
claim by Anthony Watts Surfacestations.org .

Kevin Grandia

Anthony Watts has decided not to enter into a discussion about the criticisms made in the video. Instead he’s responded to those criticisms by getting the video removed from the YouTube site. He had it deleted by filing a copyright infringement claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act:

So what do you do when someone posts a YouTube video saying you’re a crock? One way is to complain and get it wiped clean off the ‘inter-tubes.’
[...]
The video was removed after Watts complained under YouTube’s Copyright Infringement guidelines. This has become known as a DMCA Takedown – with the DMCA being the US copyright law used to criminalize anyone infringing and/or circumventing copyrighted works.

Kevin Grandia,
DeSmogBlog, July 27, 2009 ^[7]

Watts’ DMCA takedown prompted this remark on the Daily Kos:

Greenman3610 has created a masterful video entitled “Watts Up With Watts”, where he completely demolishes Anthony Watts’ “surfacestations” sham-survey. But it seems that Watts really, really hated it.
[...]
Well, the video must have been really on target — it stung Anthony Watts so badly that he initiated a DMCA “takedown” action and got the “Watts Up With Watts” video removed from youtube.com!

caerbannog’s diary,
Daily Kos, July 26, 2009 ^[8]

A Copyright Infringement Notification ^[9] to YouTube requires a signed statement of the form “I hereby confirm that I believe the video identified below infringes my copyright” and it requires the exact statements:

I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted work described above is not authorised by the copyright owner (or by a third party who is legally entitled to do so on behalf of the copyright owner) and is not otherwise permitted by law.

and:

I swear that the information contained in this notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or have an exclusive right in law to bring infringement proceedings with respect to its use.

Durango Bill’s Fight DMCA Abuse ^[10] web page explains what happens if you get a DMCA claim:

If someone wants to stop your criticism of their material, they can file a DMCA claim that you are using their copyrighted material. The claim may be frivolous, untrue, malicious persecution, whatever, but they can still file a claim.

You will receive a “Cease and Desist” notice from the person or corporation involved. This will frequently be followed by a “Notice of Infringement” from your web host with instructions stating that if you don’t remove the material in question, they will shut down your entire website. Your choices at this point consist of complying with the order to remove the material, or forget about your website. In either case the material will be removed from the Internet. As a website owner, you are declared guilty with immediate punishment applied. Forget about the 4th Amendment, due process, etc. You are declared guilty. You then have to prove yourself innocent. You must remove the material even if you intend to fight back.

Durango Bill ^[10]

Anthony Watts was asked to explain his DMCA complaint in a comment by Anil Patrim on Watts’ blog, but Watts simply replied that his reasons were “private”:

Anil Patrim (21:14:29) :
Sorry to post off topic (although the comments are all backslapping anyway) but is there a reason you (Anthony) filed a DMCA complaint against Greenman3610’s youtube video “Watts up with Watts”?
From Youtube:
“This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Anthony Watts Surfacestations.org”
Surely his video falls under fair use. Relying on the nanny state to attack critics or am I missing something?

REPLY: I don’t care to discuss my reasons here as they are private and unrelated to this discussion. Google agreed that complaint was valid and removed the video. – Anthony

First of all, I can’t see what’s “private” about stating where, exactly, Watts believes his copyright has been infringed. Second, Anthony Watts says that “Google agreed that complaint was valid”. In fact Google have taken down the video simply because they’ve received the complaint. They have no further view on its validity:

Anothy Watts has demanded that YouTube remove Sinclair’s video. This is the notice Sinclair received from YouTube: “This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Anthony Watts Surfacestations.org claiming that this material is infringing:”

Kevin Grandia,
The Huffington Post, July 25, 2009 ^[11]

Anthony Watts hasn’t given his reasons for filing the DMCA claim. He hasn’t explained what part of the video infringes his copyright. In fact, he sees those reasons as “private”. Like LBC radio, Anthony Watts seems to be an intellectual property absolutist. This interpretation of his motives gives him the benefit of the doubt – the alternative is that he wants to silence discussion of his views.

Peter Sinclair Interview

To wind up, here’s Peter Sinclair at the MSSC Summit 2009:

Related Posts

• Watts update: “Watts Up With Watts?” video checked for copyright, reposted
• DMCA takedown misuse: two cautionary tales
• More on Anthony Watts

References

1. Don’t criticise, or we’ll sue, David Allen Green, New Scientist, May 19, 2009
2. The Matthias Rath case exposes the difference between science and its imitators, Mark Henderson, The Times, September 20, 2008
3. Matthias Rath drops his million pound legal case against me and the Guardian, Ben Goldacre, Bad Science blog, September 12, 2008
4. Goldacre on the ‘intellectual property absolutists’ – LBC’s legal warning, Judith Townend, journalism.co.uk, February 6, 2009
5. UCL, Colquhoun, and Dr Ann Walker – A victory for common sense, Ben Goldacre, Bad Science blog, June 13, 2007
6. Climate Denial Crock of the Week, Greenfyre blog
7. Climate Crock Anthony Watts Scrubs YouTube Video, Kevin Grandia, DeSmogBlog, July 27, 2009
8. Global warming denier uses the DMCA to silence a critic, caerbannog’s diary, Daily Kos, July 26, 2009
9. Copyright Infringement Notification, YouTube, LLC, 2009
10. Durango Bill’s Fight DMCA Abuse, Durango Bill website
11. Debunking Another Climate Change Crock: What’s Up with Anthony Watts? Kevin Grandia, The Huffington Post, July 25, 2009