Thoughts from Kansas

Afarensis and PZ note that the Discovery Institute is trying to hide Youtube videos criticizing their pet dachshund, Casey Luskin.

Luskin Someone at Disco. has apparently been hitting his their own product, a danger in the Disco. scene. He or she thinks that they have a copyright claim on video made by Fox News. He Disco. doesn't. Fox News does, so if anyone is going to take down this video, it will be Fox, not Disco.

CaseyWhichever Disco spinner did this also needs to understand that copyright law is not a tool for censorship. Copyright exists, according to the US Constitution, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." While I might question whether anything associated with the term "Disco" can be considered science – let alone a useful art, I don't question the necessity for the law to treat those concepts broadly for purposes of copyright.

I can and do question that it serves any useful purpose, for science, for art, for democracy itself, that a petty and fallacious claim of copyright infringement might be used to silence debate. Disco., especially Casey, makes a big show of talking about civility, yet DI is using lies and deceit to block their opponents. They talk a good game about freedom, but when the pedal hits the metal, they're happy to use whatever underhanded legal maneuvers they can to silence critics.

This isn't the first time they abused copyright to shut someone up. Casey sent my friend Les Lane and my Scibling ERV nastygrams for posting his picture. Actual lawyers showed that Casey's claims had no legal merit, and the matter died down. In this case, Youtube's hair trigger for copyright infringement might not just doom the videos, but the Youtube account of Casey's critic. The damage would be much more widespread than any dispute over Casey's stunning visage.

Here are the videos. Pass them around before the Disco. gang hustles them off the floor.

Updated to add: Casey denies sending the takedown notice. He doesn't say who sent it, calling that "an internal DI matter." This is a point on which we disagree, clearly. However, I made certain assumptions about the author of the notice, and as we all know, when you make assumptions, you make an ass of u and mptions. I made small adjustments above to clarify the matter, and regret the error.