American evangelist claims copyright on public domain videos

September 20, 2007 Evangelist Kent Hovind's ministry filed several DMCA copyright complaints on YouTube causing the video-sharing website to ban several users. Hovind, who is now serving ten years in federal prison, turned Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) over to his younger son, Eric Hovind, in January 2007.

In early September CSE claimed copyrights on critical videos that had material produced by Hovind and at least one video that contained no Hovind/CSE material. However, CSE's website stated, "none of the materials ... are copyrighted, so feel free to copy these and distribute them freely." This is a point of contention since CSE is now claiming copyright on material to remove critical analysis.

The Rational Response Squad, one of the accounts banned by YouTube, has pledged to sue Hovind/CSE. Last year at Hovind's trial the prosecution and CSE employees noted that CSE was not a church nor was it operating as a legally licensed business.