Electronic Frontier Foundation sues Uri Geller

Filed in archive Business Trends on May 10, 2007

Bending spoons and laws

Ah, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was meant to extend the reach of copyright laws while limiting the liability of online providers from copyright infringement by their users. Yeah, right. I think it might have been part of the Lawyer Full Employment Act of 1998.


The Electronic Frontier Foundation must believe in that law, however. And to prove it, they filed suit against Uri Geller, the "paranormalist" who used to claim that he could bend spoons with his mind.

Confused? So am I.

In the Geller lawsuit, the EFF claims that Geller and/or his representatives demanded YouTube purge a 13-minute video of NOVA's "Secrets of the Psychics," which purports to debunk Geller's "psychic" shenanigans. But the clip contains only three seconds of material owned by Geller --- "a classic fair use of the material for criticism purposes," according to the EFF. In other words, Geller is misusing the DMCA to force video off the site.

That suit comes just two months after the EFF filed a similar case against Richard Silver, a Groton, Conn. resident who demanded that YouTube remove a clip showing people performing the "electric slide" dance on the grounds that he invented the steps.

YouTube's response was to take down the video anyway. The DMCA gives companies like YouTube protection from copyright lawsuits if those companies quickly take down infringing material at the owner's request. Given the stakes, it's understandable why YouTube would remove first and ask questions later.