Tuesday saw a whirlwind of developments in the on-going lawsuit between Christopher “Denver Metro Audits” Cordova and Jonathan “Frauditor Troll” Hudon-Huneault as YouTube personality and “right to repair” advocate Louis Rossmann produced a video initially backing Hudon-Huneault before appearing to back away from Hudon-Huneault’s fair use claims in a second video.
The day started with an overly caffeinated Rossmann releasing a video along with a link to Hudon-Huneault’s GoFundMe page. Rossman told his viewers that he was upset about Judge Virgina K. Demarchi’s recent decision to let stand a claim by Cordova using federal copyright law 17 U.S.C. § 1201.
Rossmann called 17 U.S.C. § 1201 a bad law as it contained a possible criminal punishment of up to 3 and a half years in jail for circumvention of copyright protection to access protected works.
He explained that he had a non-profit devoted to fighting the law and he went on to declare that Hudon-Huneault was not alone and dramatically challenged Cordova to sue him for using a YouTube download program to access clips he used in the video.
Then John Filax entered the picture. Filax is a long-time YouTuber who is also using Cordova’s attorney, That Randall S. “The Unhinged Attorney” Newman, Esq., to sue an apparently automated YouTube channel for copyright infringement in another case.
The Florida based Filax went live in response to Rossmann’s video and then engaged Rossman in the comments area to Rossmann’s first video. Rossmann briefly pinned an original post by Filax as Filax attacked the character of Hudon-Huneault, recounting Hudon-Huneault’s deceptions about his identity, his country of origin and then his reporting of Filax to YouTube that resulted in a privacy strike when Filax exposed Hudon-Huneault’s true identity.
Rossmann initially attacked Filax for arguing fair use and accused him of not reading the ruling on 17 U.S.C. § 1201. He later stated that it didn’t matter what people thought of Hudon-Huneault or Cordova or the fair use argument, people should focus solely on 17 U.S.C. § 1201. He would eventually unpin Filax’s comment and stop all engagement with Filax or Filax’s supporters.
Shortly after Filax’s live, an elated Hudon-Huneault went live and largely repeated his previous claims that he had absolutely proven his case that this was a free speech issue. He showed various clips of Cordova and asked for donations, stating that he had made $20,000.00 CAD in direct donations, while he made about $7,000.00 CAD in donations to his GoFundMe.
Rossmann would later release a second video, explaining that he was overcaffeinated in the first video. While he used clips apparently provided by Hudon-Huneault to impugn Cordova’s character, he would pivot and reveal that he had not read the fair use portions of the lawsuit or the rulings. In a telling reveal, he said that if the lawsuit had not included the 17 U.S.C. § 1201 claim, he would not care about it at all.
The YouTuber again explained that it didn’t matter if viewers liked Cordova or Hudon-Huneault, it mattered that 17 U.S.C. § 1201 was a bad law and if the ruling by Judge Demarchi stood, anyone who used a downloader to download videos from YouTube and then used that footage in a reaction video could face criminal punishment.
In the last livestream of the day, Cordova went live without attorney Newman and provided an ineffective response to Rossmann’s claims. Cordova would not address 17 U.S.C. § 1201 as he said that he didn’t completely understand the claim and did not have his attorney at his side.
Instead, Cordova spent most of the video showing expanded clips of the audits that Rossmann had featured on his initial video. Cordova refuted some of the fair use issues brought up by Rossmann and ended by saying that he hoped Hudon-Huneault would lose the lawsuit and then fail in an appeal to the 9th Circuit to have more case law established in his name.
Activity in the case continued late into the night with a new filing by Hudon-Huneault’s attorney, “Sinsational” Simon Lin. Lin’s filing opposed Attorney Newman’s request on Cordova’s behalf to amend his complaint to refile a claim that was dismissed by Judge Demarchi last month.
The claim was dismissed since Cordova had not yet acquired the copyright registration of the “Courthouse Fail” video at the heart of the claim. Now that Cordova has the registration, Lin opposed the filing of an amended complaint since Cordova registered it in the name of his Executive lens LLC., which is not a party in the lawsuit.
Lin also noted that since the work was registered as a “work made for hire” Cordova is not the legal owner of the video and should not be allowed to amend his complaint on those grounds.
Finally, the First Amendment Protection Agency won Tuesday’s crowd sourcing title with $100.00 in new donations to his ILLEGAL ARREST DEFENSE FUND!!! Campaign. SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes placed second and third, with a $20.00 donation to his Detained for MY Rights – Continuing the Fight for OUR Rights campaign and a $10.00 donation to his Support The Fight Against Tyranny & Corruption campaign. Hudon-Huneault’s Help us Fight this anti-free speech retaliation campaign lost another $14 on Tuesday due to conversion rate changes.
Hudon-Huneault’s campaign rebounded on Wednesday following the promotion by Rossmann, taking in $1,233.00 USD in new donations. No other campaigns that we follow received donations for the day.
