The Electronic Frontier Foundation is dropping its lawsuit against Viacom. The EFF had sued Viacom over a takedown notice the media company sent regarding a Stephen Colbert parody clip posted to YouTube.

The EFF had filed its lawsuit on behalf of MoveOn.org, Civic Action, and Brave New Films. The video, called "Stop the Falsiness," was created using clips from The Colbert Report, but it was a parody of both Colbert's right-wing schtick and MoveOn.org. At first Viacom denied sending a takedown notice over the video, but later the company admitted that it had sent the notice and that it had been a mistake to do so.

Remember how Viacom asked YouTube to remove 100,000 videos? Then after Google takes down as many videos as it can, Viacom sues the company for $1 billion, saying Google is profiting from Viacom content including clips from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report?

Right, so now, about a week later, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has turned around and sued Viacom, claiming that one of the videos in question was actually a parody of The Colbert Report, and protected under fair use. The video, produced by MoveOn parodies both Stephen Colbert's schtick, and MoveOn's strategy of using online petitions to effect social change.

I'd embed the video, but as I've pointed out, it's no longer up on YouTube. You can, however, still check it out at Falsiness.org.

The title might sound like another movie I should post on Killer Blog from CyberSpace (shameless plug), though it reflects what's really going on behind the scenes in Congress. The EFF is screaming out warnings that higher-ups in Hollywood have somehow obscured the dreaded broadcast flag into an amendment to a wordy appropriations bill. Word is the provision will be introduced before a subcommittee tomorrow and before the full appropriations committee on Thursday.