Akilah Hughes v. Carl Benjamin (2017)

[HG 400]

Akilah Hughes is a smug youtuber, social justice harpy, clickbait writer and professional sassy black woman living in NYC. Carl Benjamin is a smug youtuber, droning political commentator, euphoric atheist and professional autistic cuckold living in England.

In November of 2016 Akliah Hughs, on her youtube channel 'Akilah Obviously' uploaded a video entitled "We thought she would win" discussing her feelings about the presidential electoral upset from the perspective of a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Carl Benjamin later took multiple clips from that video, spliced them together into about a minute of content, and uploaded it to his youtube channel 'Sargon of Akaad' as a now removed video entitled "SJW levels of awareness". He did not add commentary or transformative additions in any way besides the naming of the video, and the arranging of the clips. Hughes responded with a DMCA takedown which Benjamin disregarded, leading to her filing suit against him for copyright infringement in August of 2017.

So far very little has happened. Since the filing of the lawsuit, Benjamin failed to respond in the allotted time, leading to Hughes' a council pushing for a default judgement. Benjamin's council then declared that Benjamin had not been properly served, as service was attained through an unsigned Fed-Ex delivery. Benjamin's council later accepted service on behalf of his client. The court has finally confirmed that process has been duly served, and we're now awaiting Benjamin's response.

 

[Null]

Do we have a backup of the Sargon video?

 

[HG 400]

Do we have a backup of the Sargon video?

I can't find a copy of the original, but there's this.

[video]Sargon/Akilah_Sues_Sargon_and_What_SJW_Levels_of_Awareness_Was_About-Gra-owiBrk4.mp4[/video]

It's long and boring and the guy talking sounds like a nervous autistic weirdo but it begins by showcasing exactly which clips Sargon used from Akilah's video. It also has the bonus of being undeniably transformative so you won't get any garbage suits by rehosting it.

 

[Null]

Juxtaposition of clips is very likely to be found a transformative use of work. The real purpose of copyright is to make sure that an artist who has produced a work can enjoy the benefits of their work, and their reserved rights is their monopoly over their own work for their own audience. A movie is made to sell to movie goers who want to see the movie, a movie review may be many clips of that movie but its audience is not those movie goers interested in watching the movie, it's those people who want to see the critique.

A black lady sassing about stuff has an entirely different audience than Sargon juxtaposing partials of her video beside each other to achieve a wordless critique. The mere fact he opted not to talk when so much of his other videos are basically just him talking makes it a very strong pointed silence as opposed to just lazy editing. If he wanted to blab over it he would have, but it's pretty obvious even to someone who's only seen a few of his videos he intended silence itself to be a part of his critique.

@AnOminous would probably disagree because the copyright laws strike fear into his heart, but that case I just made for Sargon is what I would expect him to use.

 

[HG 400]

Juxtaposition of clips is very likely to be found a transformative use of work. The real purpose of copyright is to make sure that an artist who has produced a work can enjoy the benefits of their work, and their reserved rights is their monopoly over their own work for their own audience. A movie is made to sell to movie goers who want to see the movie, a movie review may be many clips of that movie but its audience is not those movie goers interested in watching the movie, it's those people who want to see the critique.

A black lady sassing about stuff has an entirely different audience than Sargon juxtaposing partials of her video beside each other to achieve a wordless critique. The mere fact he opted not to talk when so much of his other videos are basically just him talking makes it a very strong pointed silence as opposed to just lazy editing. If he wanted to blab over it he would have, but it's pretty obvious even to someone who's only seen a few of his videos he intended silence itself to be a part of his critique.

@AnOminous would probably disagree because the copyright laws strike fear into his heart, but that case I just made for Sargon is what I would expect him to use.

I agree. Titling it "SJW level of awareness" when Akilah's own complaint lays out that SJW is a disparaging term for people of certain political beliefs make it pretty easy to argue that it's a 'political critique', which is extremely well-protected in the US.

I'm predicting Sargon will win the suit but still be stuck with costs.

 

[AnOminous]

@AnOminous would probably disagree because the copyright laws strike fear into his heart, but that case I just made for Sargon is what I would expect him to use.

Copyright laws should strike fear into your heart. You can end up down six figures with a few months of even a patently bogus copyright lawsuit even if you win. Why do you think creeps like JonMon reach right for a copyright lawsuit when they're trying to harass someone?

In this case, as with many of these bullshit cases, the use does actually appear to be transformative and critical, and the original work is just an idiot raving and babbling of very little financial value, but the plaintiff is obviously going to argue that it isn't transformative, it's just wholesale copyright infringement, and that just naming the video something insulting isn't transforming anything, just ripping it off.

The problem is if she wins even barely, she could win as much as $150,000 statutory damages without even proving the loss of as much as a dime. Plus attorney's fees. A statutory damages award like that is really unlikely, and federal judges probably aren't all that amused to be dragged into tarded Internet slapfights between YouTube morons about stuff that isn't worth a penny, but even a laughable statutory damages award would still trigger fee shifting.

So this bitch's lawyer(s) would still have something to collect.

This is the kind of thing any sane people would have just settled somehow, but everyone involved is a complete fucking moron.

 

[Null]

This is the kind of thing any sane people would have just settled somehow, but everyone involved is a complete fucking moron.

There's no settlement to be made. There should be charitable pro bono agencies that work with cases like this to establish a hard fair use precedent throughout the country. It's unacceptable that copyright is used as censorship for criticism.

 

[usernames can change now!]

There's no settlement to be made. There should be charitable pro bono agencies that work with cases like this to establish a hard fair use precedent throughout the country. It's unacceptable that copyright is used as censorship for criticism.

Or federal anti-SLAAP laws but for some reason that never really seems to be on the table.

 

[AJ 447]

I did a quick 'n dirty remake of the original Sargon video
https://my.mixtape.moe/qtmigt.mp4

 

[Dr. Henry Armitage]

For anyone interested there's a tech lawyer named Lior Leser, Esq who's been going through the Sargon lawsuit as well as others. Explaining the details of the case and its progress.

 

[Bryan Dunn]

How bad is sargoy gonna lose?

 

[Tranhuviya]

Sounds like pretty clear-cut fair use to me. Isn't the supercut itself part of the commentary, after all?

 

[mindlessobserver]

Or federal anti-SLAAP laws but for some reason that never really seems to be on the table.

Congress can't even agree on what the menu in the capital building cafeteria should be, let alone go through the trouble of updating copyright and civil litigation laws.

 

[Lucius Aelius]

Based on my own deeply incomplete understanding of copyright law (not a lawyer), there's slightly more of a case here than meets the eye. One of the major points of contention back in the H3H3 case was the composition of the transformative work. The work accused was (rough numbers) about 75% new, original content, a point that weighed heavily in favor of H3H3. However, it used 75% of the critiqued work, which weighed against it. On this single point of contention, I can see a sticking point. While it may have been done to critique the work, Sargon's video is almost entirely composed of recut material.

Other than that, I think that the side favored if this actually goes to trial is definitely Sargon. I mean, Fair Use doctrine was established in the first place in order to preserve critique. Particularly political critique.

I'll be following this with interest. Hopefully, it goes to court, so we can see the fallout.

 

[AnOminous]

@AnOminous would probably disagree because the copyright laws strike fear into his heart, but that case I just made for Sargon is what I would expect him to use.

No, I think there's a colorable defense here, and this is really the kind of lolsuit where you could win and get given a dollar (although if they just sought statutory damages it would be a minimum of $750). Worse, Sargon could end up having to pay the other side's attorney fees, which would be more.

It's usually not good to use so high a percentage of a work, but you have to take into consideration what kind of work it is, and it's a trivial work. You'd barely be able to criticize it without taking a substantial part of it.

I wouldn't bet on any particular outcome, but this suit is silly even if it might have technical legal merit. If she loses I could see her ending up having to pay his legal fees instead just for wasting a court's time with utter trivialities.

If I had to guess on a most likely outcome, though, it's that she loses or wins a pitiable amount, and everyone ends up bearing their own fees for the whole fiasco. Or even more likely, it becomes obvious what the outcome will be some time before trial and the case goes away one way or the other.

What I can say is this is the kind of ridiculous antfucking legal case that gives the legal system and profession a bad name.

I'll be following this with interest. Hopefully, it goes to court, so we can see the fallout.

I hope it doesn't. Just letting it waste tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars is a huge waste of everyone's time and money.

 

[2 litre soda]

Copyright law is my shit, so let me lay out a brief overview of the way the law stands, and how I'd see the case going.

There are 4 "rules" that you use to determine if something infringes copyright:

• the purpose and character of your use
• the nature of the copyrighted work
• the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
• the effect of the use upon the potential market.

and a kind of fifth phantom "Are you a douchebag?" test that can kinda sorta effect the whole thing.

1. Purpose and Character -- are you outright stealing? Has your work transformed the original in such a way that it is substantially different from the original? What have you added to the work?

This is why parody is protected. Parody transforms something serious into something stupid, and adds a social critique.

A good case in this instance is the movie Zoolander vs the Bret Easton Ellis novel Glamorama. Both had the same core idea, fashion models being brainwashed into being terrorists and assassins, and even though Glamorama is a satire of 90s culture and Zoolander is actually funny, they're similar enough that Ellis got a payoff to go away and not talk about it. Both are parodies, but they are the same parody.

By editing her work, Sargon did juxtapose her statements in such a way that, coupled with the title, it could be considered parody.

2. Nature of the Work -- Is it fiction or non-fiction?

Basically, you've got more leeway to crib from non-fiction. If you quote from a book of statistics or trivia or whatever, or if you get info like "Adolph Hitler was born on April 20th, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, Austria", that's less likely to violate than grabbing shit like Harry Potter's birthday and cock length and girth.

3. The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion -- How much did you rip off?

You can get nailed for stealing even 1% of the total work, or for stealing the "heart" of the work -- stuff like the core concept of a novel (as in the Zoolander example above) or the central idea of a paper, and claiming it was your own.

This might be where she tries to nail Sargon, saying that he took a large enough portion of her work, or her ideas, but again, parody protects -- look at Weird Al's entire career, and things like music hooks are otherwise protected as the "heart" of the song.

4. Effect on the Market -- will it cost the person money?

Basically, will anyone mistake the plagiarised work for the real thing, and cost the author of the real thing money?

No way in hell will someone mistake Sargon for Akilah, and even if it makes her lose followers, that's not because he's doing her work instead of her. She won't for the same reason George Lucas wouldn't against RedLetterMedia.

But then there's number 5, the douche factor. Sargon is, unquestionably, a douche. He sucks as a human being. He's a fat failure at life who can't open his mouth without making people hate him. And even though they've been told not to, juries do judge people on that. So do judges. So none of the above matters if you treat everyone like shit and yell and rant like you know everything. Which he does, because he read Wikipedia once and is therefore a PhD holding expert in the subject.

The garbage pail kids lost to the cabbage patch kids for this reason. It was a douchy parody.

Sargon is in pretty much this situation (full screen video on left): http://youtubedoubler.com/nnTS

 

[soy_king]

As to the fifth factor, I don't know if you've noticed but Akilah's a massive douche too. What kind of person other than a douche would make a video saying she doesn't care if she's fucking over Sargon's family, and how everyone criticizing her is a hater and she's getting plenty of dick? With this in mind, would you say she still has an advantage there?

 

[AriGiga]

As to the fifth factor, I don't know if you've noticed but Akilah's a massive douche too. What kind of person other than a douche would make a video saying she doesn't care if she's fucking over Sargon's family, and how everyone criticizing her is a hater and she's getting plenty of dick? With this in mind, would you say she still has an advantage there?

In my admittedly limited experience, people are more accepting of female douchiness than male douchiness in the courtroom, though if you get the right judge neither will be tolerated.

 

[Stormy Putin]

In my admittedly limited experience, people are more accepting of female douchiness than male douchiness in the courtroom, though if you get the right judge neither will be tolerated.

Welcome to life?

 

[soy_king]

Apparently Sargon just filed a motion to dismiss.