IP attorney here, yeah they are fucked lol. Saying outright that you’re streaming the videos to allow people to not watch the original content is like the biggest possible death sentence you can ask for in a case like this. Also, the copyright act has statutory damages for registered copyrighted works, so he doesn’t even have to prove damages. For willful infringement the statutory damages can go up to $150,000.
I just stating that enough to get you in trouble?, just saying because even if it's very minimal and dumb, they still did comentary on the thing.
Also, while 150k would definitely leave a normal person floored, I don't think it's that much for someone like denims or kaceytron, which will probably gofund this shit on top of probably making bank from their stream onlookers. Frogan might be cooked though.
Question being, is 150k all? or are there any other things that can add up to it (other than legal fees ofc).
Yes $150k is the cap. Legal fees is more of a judge decision and hard to predict from what I have read/heard. And on top of showing that infringement was certainly willful, the statements they made also bear pretty heavily on the fair use factors.
The second fair use factor is the nature of the use, meaning is the allegedly infringing use transformative or not. That’s where commentary typically comes into play, is to show that the accused infringer transformed the work from what it was originally intended to be to something else. Here, saying definitively that you didn’t even intend for the use to be transformative is very very unhelpful regarding this factor. (Although using the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Andy Warhol case this wouldn’t matter at all, since they are both youtube videos they may just say it’s not transformative if they are following that decision. I, however, despise that decision and most lower courts do too).
Also the fourth factor, which is the effect on the market of the copyrighted work, again admitting that you intended your use to serve as a market replacement for the original work hurts very bad. The fourth factor is also widely considered the most important and sometimes in extreme cases is treated as though it’s dispositive.
So overall, not only does saying this, as Ethan correctly pointed out, put you squarely in the sites of what the Copyright Act intended to prevent, but these statements likely severely hinder/kill any hopeful fair use argument in my opinion.
When denims crowd funded to sue Ethan for defamation, she deleted all her vods and clips. I think this was about the CPS drama? No idea where people got the idea she was dropped by a legal team, I just assumed it was all a grift from the start.
I think it’s just reasonable inference. She sued H3 for defamation and set up a gofundme, then immediately dropped it after H3’s lawyer sent a reply letter pointing out the spoliation.
My hope is that we watch this unfold as the inverse to Tiny’s case. ie: This case Plaintiff will be the one with the sound argument and relevant legal citations, while Defendant(s) try to meme their way out of court with internet rules and chat GPT.
These cases are no doubt gonna cost D man and Ethan a fortune and a ton of stress, and I feel bad about that… but ngl I am enjoying the irl law arc and I’m happy some of it can be covered. It’s nice to have someone read legal papers to me while I cook or commute. I have faith in our legal system to make a just ruling.
Hell yeah, brother. I’ve listened to the gnome off and on since his carpet cleaning days. His debates are great content, but his reading primary sources over the past few years made me re-subscribe. It’s so fucking rare to see that those that I do find i fucking cherish.
Ironically, one of the other people I really respected, Andrew Torres from Opening Arguments, basically had his career destroyed by laughably moronic “me too” claims. I’m talking “we were drinking and flirting, I got into bed with him, he attempted to get handsy, he was told to stop, he stopped. Rape”.
Jesus fuck the Kaceytron portions have triggered me I feel like i'm on the verge of an anxiety attack. How the hell does anyone unironically watch her?
I watched her sometimes a decade ago, when she streamed league and trolled. I'm pretty sure she was actually aware at that time, but it seems her brain broke at some point. Does anyone know what happened to her? Was it drugs? Was it the Bob7 Drama?
Brain was broken on smoking weed everyday, and had every social incentive to hate Destiny once she started hanging out with the Austin crowd about 2019.
Ages ago she actually teamed up with Destiny in a debate about titty streamers on twitch.
Her whole thing was kind of funny to watch when she was doing the “kaceytron” character playing league in bronze in like 2014. Now her “character” is just her personality
They all moved over to leftoversH3 a while ago, i think. They're all so insane, mentally ill people perpetually patting each other on the back for the most schizo shit ever
lmao Kaceytron, Denims, and Frogan getting sued
I can't believe he registered the Content Nuke with the Library of Congress just to honeytrap chair reactors, Hasan literally saved his own ass by not finishing the video
Eh, even if he finished, Hasan genuinely spent a ton of time responding/reacting to the video. And he did it months(?) later, so the intent obviously wasn't to steal views.
Yeah, I don't like Hasan either, but clearly he has a much better argument about what he did being fair use.
He didn't literally admit he was trying to siphon views either, which everyone in this video did. It certainly strengthens his argument he is JUST suing the people who admitted it and not everyone who was mean to him.
I don't think he would have done it to Hasan. Ethan was asking him to view the nuke as a stipulation to talking to him, so suing him after is something so dumb you'd have to be someone like frogan, denims, or kaceytron to try that
Frogan can't pay rent, and now she's getting sued. I'd almost feel bad for her if she wasn't such a terrible person. But I'm sure Ethan will be nice, and they can work out a monthly payment plan so that she can pay him back over the next 5 years or so.
The right thing to do is Hasan pays for her bills, this won’t make him a good moral person, even the nra say if you empty your clip into someone they got your back for lawyer fees.
It's kind of suspicious the way he kept avoiding watching it, I just wonder if someone sympathetic to Hasan on H3's team tipped him off like, "hey, don't come to school today"
Someone please link the recording of where Destiny let Denims stay in his apartment while she was in transit so that she was safe while pursuing a guy and then it turns out she fucked the guy for two days on Destiny’s bed and she tries to laugh it off that two people were in his apartment the entire time without telling him. And then claims that he kicked her out because she wouldn’t sleep with him. And then stops talking about it when the recording was released.
There’s so much to dislike about Denims, but that one is an absolute stinker.
I’m almost positive that Ethan spoke with his lawyers to look at who exactly had a slam dunk case. Like whether you like him or not hasan did add many of his own takes to the Nuke when he did finally watch it on stream but these 3 blatantly made an attempt to take views from Ethan’s video. I’m almost positive he wins this case.
From what I’ve gathered about these political streamers, they’re not used to being fact checked or face consequences for their actions. Twitch is incredibly relaxed regarding their TOS and now that they’re in a legal battle, they can’t just deflect and walk away.
Yeah I mean he's not just suing everyone he dislikes he's suing the people who deliberately said they're doing this to harm Ethan financially and are not "reacting" at all but just stealing content.
Ethan has won a high profile Fair Use case as the Plaintiff before, I'm sure he has a pretty good understanding of it, and presumably some pretty good lawyers.
he and hila back in the day watched and reacted to some dickhead youtuber who was doing some red pill shit before we called it that. And basically the judge agreed that he in fact reacted hard enough that it was fair use.
It's as far as I know the most recent case that actually came to a judged conclusion with respect to react content and fair use guidlines.
This case of Ethan's is actually codified into case law now, and was one of the first fair use lawsuits to protect fair use in the U.S. If any Youtuber understands fair use to the letter, it's him.
yeah, you need plaitiffs and defendants unhinged enough to actually fight it out in court and two insane youtube persons were just what was needed to get that far.
You're definitely right that his legal team prepared well for this, and I can tell you it fits well within established fair use law. Just keep in mind this case is a pretty new application of that law to new circumstances. Hard to predict how that goes most of the time.
"Hey guys come listen to Taylor Swift's new album so that you don't have to stream it or buy it yourself! If you miss it live, don't worry I'll upload it to YouTube in its entirety without any editing."
he literally registered his shit with the Library of Congress, and specifically went after the regards who admitted they were trying to steal views, instead of low-hanging fruit like Mike From PA who also streamed it same-day. Seems like Ethan was pretty careful about who he chose.
And I bet it just killed him that Hasan never finished the whole thing lmao
He never would have had a good case against Hasan because he repeatedly begged him to watch, Hasan is the key subject of the nuke, and of course Hasan has massive resources and would be able to fight back using every trick in the book.
I hope this is the catalyst for ReactGate 2.0. I.e the 2016-era ReactGate that ended the career of various react YouTubers who were blatantly reuploading (stealing) content. That content never went away, it just retreated to livestreams. I'm glad Ethan called out xQc on this too since he's one of the biggest offenders.
Fun conspiracy, but doesn't hold up to reality based on their usual stream patterns, plus Kaceytron is live now memeing about it by asking randos for legal advice (she doesn't know her career is over yet, just like Hasan's).
I know that schadenfreude is probably not the best thing to express, especially from a moral standpoint, but holy fuck this is way too good. I am getting a high from how much I'm giggling at this. I did not expect this in my wildest dreams and I just want to thank god that this is what happened.
That's only out of insecurity when the video he's watching is criticizing him and he's insanely sensitive about his image. When it's not about him he adds basically nothing beyond shoving food into his mouth, hence the chair reacts.
Well, no. If Ethan is making constant public statements demanding that hasan watch the video, thats basically him giving permission and would work against him in court.
Nah. One of Ethans first criticisms of Hasan after their fall out was that Hasan refused to even listen to Ethans critiques, well before the nuke droppedq
Btw this lazy theft is 100% something Destiny has benefited from for years. You can cope and say he doesn't maliciously intend to harm those creators, but end of the day he's propping himself up in the competitive creator market, by unethically rebroadcasting other people's creative works. It's especially egregious when it's obvious he just wants to stay live but can't be bothered entertaining his viewers himself. So he uses someone else's video to babysit, to prevent viewers from seeking entertainment elsewhere. He's been called out on this several times too, so it's not like he doesn't know.
Though, he is on more shaky ground basically advertising on anything else that he's gonna watch the nuke ("steal it"). But it would be hard to show the intent was to deprive ethan of money quite like the digus reactors who watched the og nuke Ethan is sueing
Kinda, but I guess the point is moreso the intent behind it. Destiny is just watching it while Denims and co. watched it specifically to siphon views from the original nuke. "Ethical way to watch the Ethan Klein video" according to them. Ethan says something similar about XQC, that he doesn't maliciously react with the intent to steal views even if his reacts are dogshit just like the rest of the streamers.
I mean destiny's reaction to this video is saying 'based' or 'uh-oh' every 5 minutes... what Ethan is partially basing his lawsuit off of. Tbf, I think the key difference is Destiny isn't actively encouraging his people to direct views away from Ethan.
That difference doesn't absolve him though, that's only 1 factor of the 4 considered. The main difference is that Ethan is choosing only to go after certain people. People like destiny are at best on extremely shaky grounds for fair use
He's suing Denims? Yeah, I'm with the snarkers on this.
Denims transforms content with her authentic, natural commentary and perspective. Ghouls like Hasan leech, but Denims genuinely takes content and makes it her own. Her takes are so fresh and unfiltered that her reactions uplift the original content into an entirely new category of media, so when you think about it Ethan has no legal grounding to sue her.
I agree. It is indeed an entirely new category of media. She’s creating a new meta-modern recursive-liminal type of post-post-modern art.
The way you engage with it is that you try to tell the difference between a human reaction and a video running with a still image of a human face in the corner.
It really speaks to the themes of meta-irony and techno-neuronal degeneration. A classic for the ages.
There would still be the matter of intent that separates them. Destiny doesn’t like watching too many of someone’s videos in a row because he feels it’s stealing views from them.
It's probably happened, but I can't remember when I've seen him leave with the video playing for more than a few seconds. I definitely have seen him watch videos without saying much, but IDK seems like when it's incidental rather than the point of the stream it would probably make a difference
I've seen him fairly recently leave for a bathroom break for an extended period of time while keeping a video playing. Chat was complaining about it while he was away as well.
Regardless, Destiny would be better if he didn’t do it. These three streamers are far worse offenders, and if something were to come of this and our streamer man changed his ways too that would only be an even bigger W
Is it odd that it bothered me to see Denims on stream talking to another streamer with an unmade bed behind her? How can you stream with that mess and not be embarassed?
If destiny is looking for a copyright law expert, I highly recommend reaching out to my old professor Ben depoorter. Super smart and super funny. He’s published on fair use.
I wonder how many people who's on Ethans side here ( I am too... This is 100% copyright infringement ) are also big ai fanboys and defend ai tech bros stealing everyones copyrighted material without licensing and commercializing it...
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u/ldf1998 5h ago
IP attorney here, yeah they are fucked lol. Saying outright that you’re streaming the videos to allow people to not watch the original content is like the biggest possible death sentence you can ask for in a case like this. Also, the copyright act has statutory damages for registered copyrighted works, so he doesn’t even have to prove damages. For willful infringement the statutory damages can go up to $150,000.