Local political critic Joseph Teixeira has posted a series of videos of Inglewood, California’s city council, providing running, and often scathing, commentary of its meetings. But now, the city is trying to put a stop to the citizen journalist’s criticism. It has sued Teixeira, has alleged that he violated the city’s copyright to the city council videos, and seeks damages and an injunction against his future use of the videos. Teixeira’s YouTube videos consist of footage of the Inglewood city council meetings and of text commentary frequently popping up at the bottom of the screen. Occasionally, Teixeira intersperses the videos with a full wall of text. Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said in a recent blog post that the lawsuit was “cooked up to shut up Teixeira,” who calls himself Inglewood’s Watchdog. The council is also suing 10 unnamed people in the same suit.

However, most commentators believe that the city’s lawsuit will be short-lived. A 2009 California appellate court case, County of Santa Clara v. Superior Court, suggests that the California Public Records Act does not allow California cities to copyright public records.

And even if that argument were to fail, Teixeira is arguing that the videos qualify as a “fair use” of the recordings. Fair use generally depends on four factors: (1) the purpose and character of the use; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

All four of those factors seem to weigh in Teixeira’s favor. The purpose and character of the use seems to be critical and factual, rather than commercial. The copyrighted work is a public record. Teixeira doesn’t post the entire council meeting recording; he generally posts only as much as he needs to make his point. Finally, California law requires Inglewood to make these videos available free to the public, so Teixeira’s use could have no impact on a potential market.

Through this lawsuit, politicians are probably trying to censor a critical viewpoint that they don’t appreciate. Luckily for citizens of California, the law is probably on their side.

Sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/06/03/city-sues-critic-for-supposedly-infringing-citys-copyright-by-posting-city-council-video-clips-with-commentary-on-youtube/ http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-inglewood-copyright-lawsuit-20150602-story.html http://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2015/05/using-copyright-as-a-censors-muzzle-inglewood-files-suit-to-silence-a-city-critic/

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