Faith Healer Adam Miller Sues Over Critical YouTube Video, Guaranteeing It Tons Of Attention | Techdirt

A self-described faith healer has filed a lawsuit against video blogger Stephanie Guttormson after she posted a video debunking his claim that he was a medical professional.

The video in question:



Miller's response with a nice smear against Stephanie:

Miller’s video also repeatedly suggested that Guttormson could not be trusted because she was transgender.

“She never once states herself what she is or who she is,” a woman in the video notes.

“She’s not actually showing anything for the community either by saying, you know, she was a guy,” a second woman agrees. “She’s not really being who she is. You know, she’s lying about that.”

From Justin Lane of Ring of Fire:

Miller’s response, being that Miller is responsible for the content of the video, to Guttormson however, focused trying to discredit her individually and focused on feelings and the potential damage Guttormson’s criticism would do to those Miller could help, rather than addressing the specific complaints that Guttormson raised.

If you can help Stephanie fight the bullshit, "I am trying to raise money so that I don't have to cave in. I'm going to fight this case as hard as I can."  As Stephanie notes, "This is a SLAPP suit designed to shut me up, but to also scare the rest of you. Do you want your free speech rights limited by this kind of behavior? What about your right to make up your own mind based on both sides of the debate?"

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There's nothing too surprising in the video, but it basically uses one of Miller's own promotional videos and intersperses some commentary and criticism. The lawsuit... is... well... a joke. First, he claims copyright infringement, though this is pretty obviously fair use. It's being used for criticism and commentary, and in order to make that work, it needs to show clips of the video. Miller's lawyer tries, weakly, to present a few arguments to try to get around fair use, including arguing that it's commercial use. Of course, as we keep repeating, commercial use does not mean that you can't have fair use. Tons of fair use involves commercial use. And, even given that, it's ridiculous to argue that this is "commercial use." The best the lawsuit can do is claim that the inclusion at the end of the video of a couple of "advertisements" makes it commercial. That, alone, probably isn't even enough to claim this is "commercial use," (which is generally more about selling the actual work or directly profiting). Plus, it's not even accurate. The "advertisements" aren't really advertisements at all, but rather a friendly acknowledgement of who sent her the video, with a link to that guy's own website and audio bookstore, with a mention that Guttormson appears on that guy's podcast every so often.

The lawsuit also claims too much of the original video was used, but there's little evidence to support that. Guttormson comments on basically every clip in the video, so it's hard to see how she's using "more of the original work than was necessary" as the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit also alleges, as part of the copyright claim, that "Guttormson is liable for the actual harm caused to Mr. Miller as a result of Guttormson’s infringement and statutory damages." That's an interesting claim, but completely bullshit in the copyright context. The "actual harm" has to be over the copyright. Unless there was "actual harm" in Miller no longer being able to license/sell that video to a third party because they felt they could see it all for free through Guttormson's video (a crazy claim), then there's no actual harm. If the commentary in Guttormson's video, which mocks Miller's wacky faith healing nonsense, created "actual harm," well, that's not a copyright issue and is unrelated to any copyright claim.

The lawsuit also makes some claims about how the video itself was never actually released, but rather was password protected in Miller's wife's account. So the lawsuit alleges that Guttormson must have "hacked" into Eve Miller's account. In the video itself, however, as mentioned above, Guttormson notes that it was actually David Smalley who sent her the video. And while it's not entirely clear, from the comment threads under the video, it certainly sounds like Miller's video was most likely publicly available somewhere online. The evidence of "hacking" here seems really weak. And if there was hacking, the evidence that it was Guttormson is non-existent.

Faith Healer Adam Miller Sues Over Critical YouTube Video, Guaranteeing It Tons Of Attention | Techdirt