Dr Drew invoked copyright laws to scare people from sharing video of his coronavirus comments

Someone with the handle @DroopsDr posted a supercut of celebrity doctor Drew Pinsky downplaying the severity of the coronavirus epidemic (“way less serious than influenza”) and then later claiming that he had always taken it seriously (“We predicted from the beginning that this was going to be worse than the flu.”)

Dr. Drew contacted YouTube and made them remove the video, citing copyright.

Then Dr. Drew went after people on Twitter who retweeted the video, with the warning: “Infringing copywrite [sic] laws is a crime. Hang on to your retweets. Or erase to be safe.”

Ars Technica reports that lawyers jumped into let people know they could safely retweet the video:

[Preet] Bharara, a former US attorney, and Boutrous, a high-profile attorney, were among the many who replied to defend or amplify Ali.

“You are safe from any ‘copywrite’ lawsuit, @yashar,” Bharara tweeted. “Know your writes.”

“Truth and fair use got you,” Boutrous added in a tweet that quoted Pinsky’s now-deleted threat.

It appears that either Pinsky or YouTube was inclined to agree. Sometime around noon Monday, give or take an hour, the YouTube video listing very quietly started working once again. Similarly, every message on Pinsky’s @drdrew Twitter account relating to the video has been deleted.

On April 4 Dr. Drew gave a qualification-riddled apology for misleading people about the severity of the virus.