City files copyright suit over government meeting footage in YouTube videos
Activist Joseph Teixeira had some concerns about the way Inglewood, California, was being run.
To make others aware of them, he interspersed video clips from city council meetings with his own narrative and footage of relevant events, such as traffic at a local intersection, the Los Angeles Times (sub. req.) reports. He assembled the documentary-style videos on iMovie and posted them on YouTube under the moniker “Dehol Truth.”
At first, council members rebutted Teixeira’s claims during council meetings. He used the material for new videos. Then the city sent him a cease-and-desist letter last year concerning his use of council meeting footage, the newspaper recounts.
When Teixeira didn’t comply, Inglewood filed a federal copyright lawsuit in March in the Central District of California. Teixeira is now waiting to see whether it will be dismissed.
Experts are dubious that the city will prevail. Even assuming that the public record of the meeting is copyrightable, which is doubtful, including snippets in a video would likely be legal, said Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA School of Law.
“When you are taking somebody else’s material, not just to reproduce it but to comment on it and criticize it and sometimes to parody it … that is generally fair use,” Volokh told the Times.
Inglewood’s mayor declined the newspaper’s request for comment because of the pending litigation.
“I have a purpose for the videos, which is to document what is going on because people have a short attention span and don’t do a lot of research,” Teixeira told the Los Angeles Times. “I try to be fair. Most of it is negative, but I don’t exaggerate and I try not to skew things. I pick the things that are obvious, that are clearly evident, and it’s by their very nature that they are damning.”
