H3H3 Productions Wind Copyright And Defamation Lawsuit
After a lengthy battle, Ethan and Hila aka h3h3productions won the lawsuit filed against them for copyright infringement and it’s being called a huge victory for YouTube.
Transcript
00:00 After a lengthy battle, Ethan and Hila Klein aka H3H3 Productions won the
00:04 lawsuit filed against them for copyright infringement and it's being called a huge
00:08 victory for YouTube. Welcome back to What's Trending, I'm Ava Gordy.
00:11 YouTuber Matt Haas sued H3H3 Productions for copyright infringement and
00:16 defamation back in February of last year. H3H3 used Haas' video titled "Bold Guy
00:21 vs. Parkour Girl" as content for their usual reaction style videos. They
00:26 intercutted clips of their reactions with the original video. Matt Haas alleged
00:29 that they used too much of his original video and sued them for copyright
00:33 infringement. He also issued a copyright takedown of their original video. And
00:37 then Ethan and Hila made a video when they got sued. And I think the heart and
00:41 soul of this is like that he doesn't like that we made fun of him and so he's
00:48 suing us. They go on to talk about being nervous because although the majority of
00:51 people think it's a clear-cut case of fair use, there was no way of knowing how
00:55 a judge or a jury would see it. But Judge Katherine B. Forrest ruled in favor of
00:59 the Kleins after a year-and-a-half long battle that cost them over $100,000.
01:03 She said, "Any review of the Klein video leaves no doubt that it constitutes
01:08 critical commentary of the Haas video. There is also no doubt that the Klein
01:12 video is decidedly not a market substitute for the Haas video. For these
01:16 and the other reasons set forth below, defendants' use of clips from the Haas
01:20 video constitutes fair use as a matter of law." They've now re-uploaded their
01:24 reaction video and Ethan tweeted, "We won the lawsuit! Video coming soon. Huge
01:29 victory for fair use on YouTube." So what do you guys think of this lawsuit? Was
01:32 the win deserved? Let us know in the COMMENTS below. For more stories like
01:35 this, go to whatstrending.com.