YouTube has a simple terms of service statement that you’re not supposed to use YouTube to issue threats to another YouTuber (or anyone really). But in the case of Thomas Bodmer, YouTube has allowed him to do so without following terms of service.
What happened was that I used about 27 seconds of an 8 minute video he made that talked about, in praise I might add, his model Airbus A380 plane. It’s a 19-foot-long model of the World’s largest passenger plane that flies and up to 40 mph in the air. Here’s the video I made:
The video can obviously be used to give Thomas Bodmer more marketing for his RCHeliJets YouTube Channel and product, but he either doesn’t see it that way, or can’t get passed the fact that it’s a black guy making the video-blog about his product.
Either way, he took to use YouTube to file a DMCA Takedown against my video, fradulently telling YouTube I uploaded his entire video, which has been seen over 3 million times, here:
As you can see, I did not do so.
Thus, when I filed a DMCA Counter-Claim to get the video re-instated, and did so – instead of being cool about it, Thomas Bodmer proves he doesn’t know Fair Use Law, and threatens to visit me at what he thinks is my home. He also used personal information about me that he got via my DMCA Counter-Claim filing and placed it for view – thankfully the information’s not all accurate, but it’s the effort that counts as the message. (Here’s my video on what he did.)
And then he tried to use YouTube to harass me – sending messages. I’ve blocked him.
I guess that because I’m a black male I’m expected to issue some physical threat, because YouTube has not bothered to repremand him for these actions. I guess, because I’m a black male, I’m expected to take this sort of thing and issue a cuss word or something, Samuel L. Jackson-style. But the bottom line is I’m entitled to the same rights as anyone else.
In this case, the right not to be cyberstalked or harassed.
For his part Thomas Bodmer has to understand Fair Use copyright law: it’s perfectly legal to use a portion of a video with the appropriate obvious news commentary approach and objective. In other words, you have to make a video that tells a news story – in other words, it’s “transformative” from the original video.
Bodmer told YouTube that I uploaded his entire video – I obviously did not do so and never would.
The CBS Morning News did this in my case when they used 20 seconds of a four-minute video I made about Paula Deen. I got that it was marketing for me and that it was legal to do under Fair Use Law.
And that’s my point. My video did not insult Thomas Bodmer or his A380 Model Jet product, but expressed interest and amazement in it. Again, the only reason he could have for his approach would be my race and sex – I’d like to see him get worked up about the video if it were a hot blonde hardbody woman like Megan Avalon talking about his model plane!
Moreover, I have said, more than once and again here, that I’m happy to help praise his work in building model planes. I’m a fan, but just because I don’t look like he wants me to, doesn’t mean I can be silenced, cyberstalked or harassed.
I think Mr. Bodmer, who lives in Switzerland, doesn’t know fair use law. It’s sad that he’s getting a lesson in this way. It’s also sad that he can’t see that his work is being praised.
For its part,YouTube has to be proactive in intervening to stop such actions. In the video above I said I want RCHeliJets Off YouTube. Well, I don’t. I just want Bodmer to leave me alone. Now if he wants me to praise his model airplanes, I’m all for that.
That’s all I was doing, anyway.
Stay tuned.