Here’s a copy of the actual demand letter YouTube sent YouTubers who’d posted Colbert Report, Daily Show, or South Park footage to YouTube. Got this via Idealog. It has a copyright notice on it…wonder what they’ll do to me. If I don’t post in 48 hours, call the cops…no, call the UN. Note also that it was removed simply on receipt of the complaint, not after investigation of the complaint. Looks like Gawker‘s (and mine! and Christopher Walken’s Mother‘s) boring YouTube Cassandrizing is starting to manifest.
YouTube
Dear Member:
This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Comedy Central claiming that this material is infringing:
Stephen Colbert Interviews Steve Wozniak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-whFuN0S0M
Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube’s copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.
If you elect to send us a counter notice, to be effective it must be a written communication provided to our designated agent that includes substantially the following (please consult your legal counsel or see 17 U.S.C. Section 512(g)(3) to confirm these requirements):
(A) A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber.
(B) Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled.
(C) A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.
(D) The subscriber’s name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or if the subscriberis address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found, and that the subscriber will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection©(1)(C) or an agent of such person.
Such written notice should be sent to our designated agent as follows:
DMCA Complaints
YouTube, Inc.
1000 Cherry Ave.
Second Floor
San Bruno, CA 94066
Email: copyright@youtube.com
Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.
Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.
Copyright © 2006 YouTube, Inc.
raincoaster 
You do know that you just broke YouTube’s copyright by posting their copyright copyright infringement letter?
They may just send you another copyrighted copyright infringement letter ordering you to stop infringing on their copyright when they try to enforce copyright.
No, no, you don’t know the whole drama: I didn’t post the letter they sent me, I posted an unauthorized copy of the letter they sent Idealog, so I anticipate that they’ll send Idealog a copyrighted copyrighted copyright infringement letter, and that they will send me a copyrighted copyright infringement copyrighted copyright infringement letter.
That aught to keep them so busy they won’t have time to take down all the Conan and Letterman vids.
I wonder what would happen if you posted an interpretive video with the parts of, for example, Colbert and Wozniak, played by actors?
Support piratocracy!
Not a bad idea, but you’ll have to work off a downloaded copy of the original.
For me, my current events awareness is now restricted to Olbermann. Prepare for humourlessness! Comedy Central, what have you unleashed!
It is time for someone to organize a mass download. That is, on one given date everyone netwide should be encouraged to pirate a copy of a particular movie. Set it up so that it’s being done at the same clock time, and stagger the download locations so that the servers will withstand the onslaugt.
I’m sick and tired of paying to support a business model that’s past Cheyne-Stokes breathing and is now in a persistent vegetative state. Sorry–that’s a persistent persecutive state.
If these pricks can keep suing to keep people from viewinging content that it’s perfectly legal to record on a VCR, and which has already been broadcast into the public sphere, then I shall set up a newspaper and sue Reuters, AP, and internet service providers for infringement of copyright on weather reports.
I will also lobby for a “blank media levy” on foolscap paper, newsprint, and cocktail napkins.
I will freely hand out my business card, which will have on the back the codicil that I may enter your home at any time to check that you’re not violating my copyright by writing down any of the information thereon.
Furthermore, I shall trademark and copyright my personal name, and when some process server appears at my doorstep I will sue whoever printed the warrant.
Piratocracy forever.
Of course I may change my mind on this if my novel ever gets published.
Check BoingBoing today: they’ve featured the Automatic Search Warrant Generator. Hours of fun.