Saturday saw a new announcement from Christopher “Denver Metro Audits” Cordova and that Randall S. “The Unhinged Attorney” Newman, Esq., that they have made good on previous threats and gone ahead and sued “the Exposer” of 1a Audits Exposé fame and his attorney, Lee Rapkin.
The lawsuit is the first to feature Cordova’s holding company, Executive Lens, as the plaintiff in the suit with Rapkin being targeted by the suit as she filled out the single counter DMCA notice for all the videos in question, taking responsibility for acceptance of service of the lawsuit.
At issue are 17 videos removed by YouTube, which account for 17 strikes against the 1a Audits Exposé channel, and consist of 16 shorts and a long form video. 1a Audits Exposé voluntarily took his channel down earlier in the month, to set it on “pause” as he explores other interests.
It is unclear if YouTube sanctioned the channel or took the channel down because of this, as 1a Audits Exposé had claimed that there was pending action by the corporation against his channel on the Monday following his voluntary removal of said channel.
Attorney Rapkin is targeted as a defendant in the lawsuit as she filed the DMCA counter notice and claimed that she was responsible for the contents of the channel. Instead of disputing each claim with individual counterclaims, she filed one document containing a single response for all 17 claims.
In her response, she defends the short form videos as fair use, despite the lack of verbal content or reactions by The Exposer himself. The videos typically feature a short clip taken from one of Cordova’s videos, followed by a reaction to that clip using other copyrighted works, such as short clips from TV shows such as ‘The Office.’
YouTube had sided with the plaintiffs by removing all 16 of the shorts, deeming them in violation of the fair use policy. Rapkin’s response claims that the removal was in error and that the videos “significantly transformed by detailed editing and elaborate commentary throughout.”
Despite failing to raise the $405.00 they previously announced they needed to file with the GoFundMe associated with the lawsuit, they found the money to move forward with the suit.
Cordova and Newman announced their new lawsuit on a Saturday livestream on Newman’s The Unhinged Attorney YouTube channel, with the pair again indicating that they’re moving forward with the registration of Cordova’s videos and more lawsuits.
During the livestream, the pair went over their lawsuit against the defendants then provided an example of a video that they said properly demonstrates “fair use.” They played a video made famous from the Hosseinzadeh v. Klein case, a lawsuit that was ultimately won by the defendants and established that the defendants did not violate “fair use” guidelines.
With permission from the attorney for Ethan Kline, the pair played the video at the heart of that lawsuit. The video featured defendants Ethan and Hila Klein appearing on camera during the video and featured their reactions to a video produced by Matt Hosseinzadeh, a parkour YouTuber.
The Kleins use approximately 30 second clips of the video at a time, pausing to give commentary about what they just witnessed. More often than not their commentary, which is given while the video is stopped, is longer than the clip they just watched as they provide feedback on the video.
According to Newman and Cordova, this Court essentially established this as a “fair use” template for others to use when producing videos.
Cordova also addressed the continuing statements by community members that he was simply using the lawsuits to silence critics and prevent the use of any of the videos from his channel in reaction videos.
The YouTuber said that this was not the case, as he was fine with the use of his videos as long as they’re used in a transformative manner. He and Newman had previously stated that such channels as Lucid’s Lair properly break down their videos and do not provide a “market substitute” for the original video as they keep the usage of footage to a minimum and provide original extensive original commentary between clips.
They also cited Flat Derp’s videos, which typically use audio from other videos to produce new animated content, to be both funny and fine to use. Derp essentially uses the audio footage to create an entirely new work based on the original, without duplicating the material from the original.
The pair also announced that they were in the process of acquiring rights to the video catalog of the JC News Now channel, which will also be used for future lawsuits once they begin to register the copyright from videos in the catalog.
Cordova, through Newman, is seeking monetary damages, a declaratory judgment that The Exposer’s use of the 17 Videos is not protected by 17 U.S.C. § 107, and a permanent injunction preventing the Exposer or YouTube from returning the videos in question to the service.
