You may have noticed a couple video essays disappeared from our YouTube channel yesterday. Don't worry, we are working to get them back online.

Here's what happened. On March 8th 2019 Warner/Chappell music issued two bogus "infringement" takedowns. One over 11 seconds of background music in a clip from The Hot Chick and the other over 8 seconds of background music in clips from Groundhog Day. As a result my two video essays "Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs" and "Stalking for Love at the Movies" were unjustly removed from YouTube.

These takedowns are ludicrous and represent a flagrant disregard for the fair use doctrine, which (under section 107 of US Copyright law) allows limited transformative re-use for the purposes of criticism, comment, and scholarship. Warner Chappell should know better than to ignore fair use but they're betting that small creators will be too scared to challenge their claims. I'm calling their bluff.

I'm working with attorney Art Neill of New Media Rights, who is an expert in fair use, to get both videos reinstated as soon as possible. We have filed fair use counter-notices but the process may take two weeks.

In the meantime both episodes are still available via the Internet Archive. Hi-res download links can also be found below each video. 

• Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs: goo.gl/RvWAuJ 
• Stalking for Love at the Movies: goo.gl/xW6oij

I'll make sure to keep you all updated on the situation. Thanks for your support!

Best,
Jonathan