Spoon-bending psychic sued over Youtube boob

At the centre of the case is a 13-minute video posted on Youtube in which magician James Randi, a skeptic famous for debunking paranormal claims, 'exposes' Geller as a fraud and demonstrates a range of sleight-of-hand tricks he could have used.

The clip was put together by the Rational Response Squad (RSS), a group of online atheists who believe they have a mission "to help the world overcome irrationality" (sic) and who tend to use YouTube to do it.

After watching the clip, Geller apparently went on a bender and filed a DCMA take down notice (pdf) with Youtube, claiming the video had infringed copyright.

YouTube subsequently removed the video and on March 23, suspended the account of Brian Sapient, the eminence gris behind the Rational Response Squad.

However, it has since emerged that the material owned by Geller's company, Explorogist Ltd, makes up a measly three seconds of the overall video - a fact used by Sapient in the countersuit filed in San Francisco this morning.

"This case arises out of a baseless legal threat of copyright infringement made by the Defendants against Plaintiff. The threat resulted in the removal of a video Plaintiff posted to the popular Internet media website Youtube, as well as the suspension of Plaintiff's YouTube account," it reads.

"Uri Geller may not like it when people question his paranormal abilities. However, he is not allowed to stifle public criticism by misusing the law," said Marcia Hoffman, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation which is representing Sapient.

"If the publication of a video does not infringe his copyright, then he cannot block its use -- it's as simple as that."

You can watch the video here. µ