It appears that Wikileaks, most recently in the news after a Swiss bank got it briefly shut down for revealing “trade secrets,” is now drawing the copyright-related ire of the Church of Scientology. Wikileaks says it is “developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis,” and says it hopes the risks of conveying sensitive information about repressive regimes and unethical government and corporate information will be lowered using technology, encryption, and “untraceability.” It’s high-minded stuff, and the information on the site ranges from explosive to fascinating to (seemingly) innocuous and on to impenetrable. The site certainly gets under the skin of its targets, and most recently, the Church of Scientology is claiming that Wikileaks is violating its copyrights by publishing its Operating Thetan documents, which are considered the “biblical” material of the organization.

Not surprisingly, Wikileaks doesn’t plan to comply. More than that, though, they point to the Scientologists’ complaints as part of a pattern of abuse of the legal system that “aids and abets a general climate of Western media self-censorship, due to the fear of litigation costs,” as a Wikileaks rep told The Register.

Now, I find something about the Wikileaks rhetoric a bit off-putting, but I think they may have hit the nail on the head with this one. And the fact is that Scientology is far from the only cult that’s aiding and abetting media self-censorship. TechCrunch today points to an absolutely over-the-top DMCA takedown notice over what is clearly fair use of the YMCA song (you know, Village People?). In fact, the song itself isn’t even played — I’ll save you having to watch the video (as Arrington saved me) by telling you that the puppet simply sings a line. The result? A threat from Yahoo to remove all the user’s uploaded videos, cancel all his services, and deactivate his Yahoo account. Shame on Yahoo, sure, but they’re simply enacting the same policy YouTube and many others have–take down the offending material first, and deal with accuracy later. (You know, kill them all and let God sort ‘em out?)

And when faced with such a nuclear sounding option from Yahoo, you can see why someone who isn’t inclined to a fight might simply capitulate, and why many often do. Lawsuits are easy to threaten, relatively easy to file, and difficult and expensive to defend against. And we’ve created a copyright and intellectual property machine that makes lawsuits the veritable law of the land. Information may want to be free, but it’s getting awfully hard to free it. To that end, I guess, fight on, Wikileaks! (Also, seriously. You should go read some of that Scientology stuff. They crazy.)

Filed under: Information, News, copyright, DMCA, Scientology, takedown, Wikileaks, Yahoo