Homo Heroes taken down By National Organisation for Marriage

Last month LGF online awarded the accolade of homo heroes to a group of reddit users who had come together to challenge the National Organisation for Marriage's (NOM) anti gay marriage ad called the "Gathering Storm".

Users of the social networking site reddit came together and posted a parody of the anti gay marriage advert. However, the video has now been taken down from YouTube after YouTube received a Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice from National Organisation for Marriage. To see the NOM take down notice, click here.

NOM have claimed that the parodies infringe upon their copyright. DMCA notices allow copyright holders to alert a host or isp of a copyright infringement and request that the material be taken down.

The user or creator of the material then has the option of filing a counter notice if they believe that the material was "fair use".

Parody is recognised as a type of "fair use", like other commentary and criticism, and courts recognise that a parody must often take recognisable elements from the work it comments upon.

Under this definition the reddit users parody ad is "fair use" and therefore should not have been taken down.

However, what many large organisations bank on is that the creators of such parodies will not file a counter notice as it opens the creator up to a law suit.

Large organisations can exploit this legal loophole knowing that the individuals who post these parodies will not have the financial resources or the legal know how to fight it, therefore silencing the opposition.

Large organisations can send out DMCA notices to have material critical of themselves censored even if those materials clearly fall under "fair use", as few users will be willing to risk a lawsuit to assert their rights.

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The National Organisation for Marriage have released a new ad starring Miss California and Conservative poster girl Carrie Prejean called "No Offence". The ad shows clips from the Miss USA contest where Prejean was asked a question about her thoughts on gay marriage by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton.

Hilton himself has issued You Tube with a DMCA take down notice claiming that the "No Offence" ad violated his copyright. Hilton's actions are widely debated on NOM's website, one commentator describing his actions "copyright bullying".

However, their site fails to mention that NOM have been doing there own spot of "copyright bullying" and issuing DMCA take down notices to the individuals who have been posting up parody video's of the "Gathering Storm" ad.

The difference is Hilton is an individual taking on a wealthy national organisation, as opposed to a wealthy national organisation taking on individuals and small groups of social networkers in order to silence opposition to their homophobic opinions.

Stop NOM silencing their opposition! Sign the petition above to lobby You Tube to put the "Gathering Storm" parody back up.