Massive Takedown of Anti-Scientology Videos on YouTube

Over a period of twelve hours, between this Thursday night and Friday morning, American Rights Counsel LLC sent out over 4000 bogus DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, all making copyright infringement claims against videos with content critical of the Church of Scientology. Clips included footage of Australian and German news reports about Scientology, A Message to Anonymous/Scientology, and footage from a Clearwater City Commission meeting. Many accounts were suspended by YouTube in response to multiple allegations of copyright infringement. YouTube has yet to comment on the issue, and many of the accounts and videos pulled over the weekend have now been restored after those affected filed counter claims. However, the guilty-until-proven innocent method of dealing with notices like this may have to be re-evaluated. While filing a false DMCA notice is a criminal offense, prosecution in these cases rarely comes about