Herman Li is Cool bites the dust

Well, it finally happened:

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 Guitar World, Future US Inc. claiming that this material is infringing:

Herman Li is cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSNLfa1VPwo

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 prevent this from happening, 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, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.

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.

I still don't fully understand why these videos keep getting taken down...sure it has copyrighted material, but what damages am I causing to the owners? It's like they take them down solely because they can. All of the Dream Theater parodies are still up because Dream Theater is a bunch of great people who obviously have human qualities, such as senses of humor. I hope one day that Yngwie, Michael Angelo, and Dragonforce can get over themselves and learn to laugh at themselves once in a while.

I wish them all the best on their journey to obtain a sense of humor!



By the way, the Copyright Infringement letter I got says 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." Well here is section 512(f):

(f) Misrepresentations. - Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section —

(1) that material or activity is infringing, or

(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,

shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.

Well that only applies if the material is infringing, and according to section 107, it would seem that my videos are not infringing. Section 107 says:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

I'm no lawyer by any means, but does this mean that I can get my videos back up on youtube?

Sources here and here