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BOSTON—A citizen journalists’ group represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a federal lawsuit today against a Massachusetts community-access television company for falsely convincing YouTube to take down video clips of city government meetings.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts by Channel 781, an association of citizen journalists founded in 2021 to report on Waltham, MA, municipal affairs via its YouTube channel. The Waltham Community Access Corp.’s misrepresentation of copyright claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) led YouTube to temporarily deactivate Channel 781, making its work disappear from the internet last September just five days before an important municipal election, the suit says.
“WCAC knew it had no right to stop people from using video recordings of public meetings, but asked YouTube to shut us down anyway,” Channel 781 cofounder Josh Kastorf said. “Democracy relies on an informed public, and there must be consequences for anyone who abuses the DMCA to silence journalists and cut off people’s access to government.”
Channel 781 is a nonprofit, volunteer-run effort, and all of its content is available for free. Its posts include videos of its members reporting on news affecting the city, editorial statements, discussions in a talk-show format, and interviews. It also posts short video excerpts of meetings of the Waltham city council and other local government bodies.
Waltham Community Access Corp. (WCAC) operates two cable television channels: WCAC-TV is a Community Access station that provides programming geared towards the interests of local residents, businesses, and organizations, and MAC-TV is a Governme
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