Earlier today, Dark Christianity reported on a post in Bad Astronomy (which has also been carried in the Pharyngula blogsite) in regards to Kent Hovind now taking very Scientology-esque attempts to silencing critics--namely, filing bogus DMCA papers to Youtube in attempts to get videos critical of him removed from the website that contain material from Hovind's own videos.

The reason I state "bogus" is because there is documented proof that Kent Hovind explicitly placed the videos in question in the public domain; in fact, their own website has (revealingly) stated they cannot sell or allow people to sell the video "for any price" but encourage copying and distribution by private parties. (This has, in fact, been apparently the case since at least 2005 if not earlier; in 2003 there are online archives (available via the Wayback Machine) indicating he was actually streaming the videos via Real Media online, and in fact the earliest archive available from the Wayback Machine of Hovind's site explicitly advises people to copy upwards of thirty minutes of video for distribution (this being an archive dating from May 26, 1999).)

Apparently, Hovind's lawyers are also aware of the bogosity of their claims--among other things, previous statements to the effect that no works of Creation Science Ministries are copyrighted have been redacted from the website. (Internet Archive material has shown that the statement that the works were not copyrighted was publically available as of 2005 and is available in a later revision of the website; the claims of copyright started around October 2005 according to the Wayback Machine, but the page in regards to Creation Science Ministries had not been changed until very recently.)

First off, the obligatory disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer, nor do I play one on the Internet. My understanding of copyright law is based on my awareness of it in regards to artists' rights (re copyright) and in the software world.

For what it's worth, legally one cannot "retroactively copyright" material (literally one of the few court cases resulting from such an attempt was Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, involving a telephone company publishers' attempt to retroactively copyright a phone directory; instead, it ended up setting the legal principle in copyright law that mere collections of info are not copyrightable). In general (under copyright laws in countries that have signed the Berne Convention on Copyright--the US became a formal signatory in 1980) works are considered copyrighted upon creation *but* common law holds that it is in fact legally possible to abandon copyright by expressly stating it is not copyrighted and in the public domain. (There isn't much case law on this in the US as of yet, as copyrights were required to be formally registered to be legally valid until very recently and because it is fairly rare in the non-computer world for works to be explicitly placed in the public domain.)

And yes, placing in the public domain does in fact mean that the rights to control it go away; for starters, there are open-source licenses that do not abandon copyright but encourage copying and derivative works (BSD and GPL licensing for software (among others) and the Creative Commons License for artistic works) and much of the reason for open-source licensing is so that an easy method of distribution and allowing copying without the author losing ultimate creative control over his work would be possible.

(There is actually a very good example of the advantages of open-source licensing over placement in the public domain (and a major controversy related to possible changes in licensing terms of an existing open-source license) in the (tabletop RPG) gaming world. Wizards of the Coast, who released the gaming system used in Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 and 3.5 under the Open Gaming License (and incidentially saved D&D's bacon doing so; prior to this, the only "open source" gaming system was GURPS which was giving it some real competition), was the subject of very scary rumours before GenCon 2007 that speculated that the Open Gaming License would either be heavily restricted or done away with for 4th Ed. D&D (this turned out not to be the case. (This is a VERY major deal; pretty much D20 is the major "fan scenario developed" gaming system out there, especially as people have abandoned White Wolf's Storyteller System after the complete retcon/reinvention of the World of Darkness that proved to be very unpopular among gamers. Several companies, including a few that close and dear friends of mine write for, publish non-WotC D20 sourcebooks and guides; several game producers (including, notably, AEG Games) ported existing game systems to D20 rules; and even White Wolf itself publishes D20 game system material under the Sword and Sorcery imprint. Even the actual terms of licensing for 4th Ed (in that companies producing D20 material commercially must now pay a license fee to WotC) is highly controversial.) Open sourcing the game system for Dungeons and Dragons allows WotC to exercise this level of creative control over the D20 system; if they released it into the public domain, *anyone* could do stuff with it and WotC would have no rights whatsoever over the material.)

(There is also a remarkably similar debate going on now in regards to potential revisions of the GPL, which many programmer geeks may be familiar with. Among other things, a great deal of the controversy over GPL 3.0 is that it is highly restrictive in such a way that it may restrict the rights of authors to engage in partnerships with non-open-source companies. (Battle lines have already been drawn, and no less than Linus Torvalds--the "original architect" of the Linux operating system and the owner of copyright to the entire operating system and all Linux distros--has stated that Linux will not be relicensed as GPL 3.0 due to the restrictions on commercial partnerships.)

The Creative Commons website (which promotes a type of open source licensing for public works) has an example of a statement of placing works in the public domain that gives info on exactly what rights are lost by former copyright holders when such works ARE placed in the public domain:

The person or persons who have associated work with this document (the "Dedicator" or "Certifier") hereby either (a) certifies that, to the best of his knowledge, the work of authorship identified is in the public domain of the country from which the work is published, or (b) hereby dedicates whatever copyright the dedicators holds in the work of authorship identified below (the "Work") to the public domain. A certifier, moreover, dedicates any copyright interest he may have in the associated work, and for these purposes, is described as a "dedicator" below.

A certifier has taken reasonable steps to verify the copyright status of this work. Certifier recognizes that his good faith efforts may not shield him from liability if in fact the work certified is not in the public domain.

Dedicator makes this dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of the Dedicator's heirs and successors. Dedicator intends this dedication to be an overt act of relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights under copyright law, whether vested or contingent, in the Work. Dedicator understands that such relinquishment of all rights includes the relinquishment of all rights to enforce (by lawsuit or otherwise) those copyrights in the Work.

Dedicator recognizes that, once placed in the public domain, the Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived.

(emphasis mine)

As Hovind himself explicitly put the work in the public domain it is in fact among the more (legally) solid types of public domain work--as long as there is documented info showing the original author intended it to be public domain, his word trumps all. (It is precisely this info that CSM is trying to remove from its website.)

However, it may not really matter whether the work is public domain or not. As I've noted in another thread, there are not only the issue as to whether or not the work is in the public domain but the possibility that fair use provisions may come into play.

Even for copyrighted works, the principle of fair use provisions comes into play. Among other things, portions of copyrighted works are allowed to be copied for purposes of review, criticism, debate, or parody. (Among other things, fair use is what keeps Usenet and Internet mailinglists legal; quoting from posts or emails in order to answer them is legally considered fair use of "published" copyrighted material. You can't make this stuff up.)

The Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107, details the fair use provisions:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

(emphasis mine)

In general, it's been held that parody (such as, for instance, Barney skins for monsters in Doom and Quake or even stories about Barney being in fact a horrible maneating beast from the nether regions--or for that matter, the song "Barbie Girl"--both of which have been subjects of copyright infringement lawsuits by Lyons Group and Mattel) have free reign as protected derivative works (specifically, as forms of criticism.) The entirety of "Mystery Science Theater 3000"--and the act of MSTing in and of itself--is also covered as essentially fair use materials of a work for extended criticism and parody.

It has also been held that paragraphs or even chapters of books may be used under fair use provisions for purposes of criticism and review as well as under research provisions. (In some legal cases--notably Sony Corporation v. Universal City Studios--copying of an entire work (notably videotaping; this particular court decision gave the legal right to videotape movies (broadcast on TV) for future viewing, and is largely responsible for why things like Tivos and MythTV devices are legal today) has been held as legal fair use; most other court precedents have had lower percentages.)

The courts have in general held that fair use in regards to copyrighted factual material required for discussion of an event are more subject to fair use provisions--for instance, fair use of the Zapruder film footage would be more likely to be approved than, say, a sample from the movie "Godzilla"--though even that is permissible in, say, a book or movie on the history of kaiju movies.

In other words, RRS would have a very good argument that they were in fact copying portions of the films in order to provide background context for criticism--which is perfectly permissible fair use, has been upheld by the courts for decades, etc. (In fact, they have probably far more solid grounds than, say, people doing anime music video mashups on Youtube--also the subject of DMCA takedown notices, and also in general protected as parody (I'll put it like this--I've worked at anime conventions, I know people who have *managed* major sections of large anime conventions, and if there were a huge problem with AMVs and similar parodies (which have been shown for years and years at conventions) the anime publishers there at the fucking convention and their company reps would have informed the con staff that There Was A Problem.)

For those wondering what the fuss is about, Rational Responders has in fact archived all the goods on their website for viewing; they are also now organising a Mass Mirror Campaign (both across multiple Youtube accounts, encouraging people to mirror it themselves, and encouraging mirroring at *other* video sites as well) in the same spirit as people mass-mirrored the Fishman Affidavit in the days when the Scientologists were flinging cease-and-desist orders hither and yon to try to stamp out the dirty truth about that stuff with Xenu and nuking aliens in volcanoes :3 The Kent Hovind stuff is right here, and much of their work crosses into both frank parody *and* criticism :3

At least one video includes particularly damning info which narrows down the redactions to occuring sometime around or after 13 September 2007; literally sometime within the past five days or so. Another video (warning: some language NSFW including an infamous song denoting Kent Hovind as a f*cktard) has noted that Hovind's group (and in particular Hovind's son Eric Hovind) may have DMCA SLAPP-spammed Youtube (no less than ten separate DMCA requests); the video notes that DMCA requests are in fact legal documents and people who file false DMCA requests are subject to perjury penalties. Youtube account CSEMinistry seems to be the major offender, and there are videos which have been pulled that did not contain any content from Creation Science Ministries (including the "You're a F*cktard" video noted above).

There are also archives of the vids in question (that led to bans) at this website in Windows Media format. RabidApe also has archives of the MP3s from his criticism/commentary vids here (and a separate link to to the infamous song in question.