As with Jim Moore’s video — now famous thanks to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing — you can decide for yourself whether Viacom’s cease-and-desist letter should have resulted in Jaegercat’s video being taken down at YouTube.
In an e-mail from .sg, (which she said I could republish), Jaegercat writes: “My video ‘Beat Police’, an original work, was one of the ones on which Viacom is claiming copyright. … My video used to be here but is also here (and clearly not Viacom copyright). … The video itself took me 5 months to make. It containes 3D models made by third-parties, each of which is used with permission. … The song was written and performed by my husband and has no third-party components. … And yes, I can prove all of this as I have all original working files, and all of the licences giving right-to-use. … The video itself was shown in a film festival last year, as an original work, and the defamation in the Viacom/Youtube statement could therefore cause me real damage.”
One does wonder about the statement: “This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Viacom International Inc. because its content was used without permission”. In some cases, it sounds like that’s not true with some of these take-down notices. I suppose you run up against a damages question, but it certainly seems like a user might have a valid concern about defamation.
John Palfrey 
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I’m a big fan of youtube 🙂 It has enabled me to see many things, especially fromthe past that i would never have been able to see in the past. Would it not be better for viacom to do a similar deal to the bbc and get an advertising cut?