The campaign video titled “Everything is NOT Awesome” is inspired by the popular “Everything is Awesome” song, a callback to the LEGO movie. The video shows LEGO figures drowning in oil with a cover of the song playing in the background.

Over the past several days more than three million people have watched the video on YouTube. However, a few hours ago the video suddenly became unavailable due to a copyright claim by Warner Bros.

TorrentFreak contacted Greenpeace who informed us that the email YouTube sent doesn’t clarify on what grounds the video was taken down. The group assumes that the use of the song is the culprit, but says it won’t let this case go without a fight.

“Our film was designed as a creative way of letting people know about the threat to the Arctic from Shell and the role LEGO has in the story. It seems to have struck a nerve with some important corporate bigwigs, but this crude attempt to silence dissent won’t work,” Greenpeace’s Ian Duff says.

Greenpeace will appeal the takedown request, a process that can take up to 10 days to complete. In the meantime the group has uploaded the video to Vimeo, along with a call to its millions of social media followers and mailing list subscribers to re-upload it elsewhere.

“We fully intend to challenge this claim, and we’re asking supporters to upload the video wherever they can,” Duff says.

In the appeal Greenpeace will argue that the video uses satire and parody and that it is in the public interest. The video should therefore be protected under the right to free speech.

This is not the first time that Greenpeace has had one of its campaign videos removed from YouTube. Previously a video featuring several Star Wars characters was taken down. The video was later reinstated after Greenpeace successfully appealed the takedown request.

Warner Bros’ motivation for the takedown remains unclear. It seems unlikely that it is an automated request since there are still more than 700 video on YouTube that use the same ‘Everything is Awesome’ song.

Whatever the reason may be, the takedown attempt will clearly backfire.

During the days to come the rift between Greenpeace and Warner Bros. will be widely covered by the media while hundreds of copies of the video will be uploaded and shared.

Update: The video is back online.

“18 hours later we’ve seen that the video has been re-instated. WB have withdrawn their complaint. It seems who ever wanted it censored has spotted the error in their ways,” Duff informs TorrentFreak.

Update 2: Warner Bros. now removed the video from Vimeo….

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Of course, the makers of LEGO probably aren’t that keen on kids building space guns and other makeshift weapons out of their famous multi-colored blocks. But while there’s little the Danish company can do about that happening in private, raise your head in public doing the same thing and matters can take a turn for the worse.

Last year the Czech Pirate Party produced an animated promotional video to assist their political campaign showing a couple of ‘influential’ businessmen with government connections throwing their money into a lake.

As the video below shows, their little party had an unexpected gatecrasher intent on draining the lake of the corrupt big fish.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, LEGO are not happy that the Pirates used their product in this way. LEGO issued the Pirate Party with a takedown notice in August 2012 claiming copyright and trademark infringement, but the party refused to comply.

“Their claim is based on ‘good reputation of a corporation’,” Mikulas Ferjencik, vice-president of the Czech Pirate Party told TorrentFreak. “LEGO claims that we have damaged their reputation by linking LEGO and the Pirate Party.”

In October matters escalated when LEGO applied to a Prague court for a preliminary injunction against the party. The injunction was granted, forcing the pirates to remove the video from their official campaign media, but LEGO have additional demands.

“First they want us to not use LEGO figurines in any of our activities. Second, they want us to apologize for using LEGO figurines without their permission and to state that we did not receive any financial support from LEGO for our campaign. Third, pay the costs of the court,” Ferjencik adds.

Despite the elections being over, the party went on to file an appeal against the injunction. The complaint from LEGO had certainly pushed their buttons.

“This is exactly the kind of action against which pirates are fighting. We do not like limiting artistic creation or restrictions on human freedoms under the guise of copyright protection, or under a similar pretext of protecting the reputation of a legal person,” says Czech Pirate Party chairman Ivan Bartos.

“The clip with LEGO figures was created by our fan as his artistic work. Is it really true, that an artist may not use a figure for his own story, until it is approved in the instructions of the LEGO marketing department?”

The appeal will be heard by the High Court in Prague but in the meantime the pirates are encouraging supporters to send a clear message to LEGO. This, the party says, will be achieved by turning the Danish company’s own product against them.

“Get a Pirate flag or two and/or other Pirate merchandise you happen to own, go to your nearest LEGO-land or LEGO store and take a photo in front of it with all the flags and stuff,” the party says in their appeal.

“Finally, send us the picture and, ideally, also the GPS coordinates of the place where the picture was taken, so that we can make a map of the places in case this campaign gets appropriately big.”

Other creative options for protest are acceptable according to the pirates, as long as they depict Pirate Party imagery alongside LEGO products.

In 1996 LEGO was involved in another controversy when a Polish artist used their product to make a concentration camp. LEGO took legal action but later dropped the complaint following public outcry. The Pirate Party would welcome a similar outcome.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.