San Francisco - Digital civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is seeking anyone whose videos were wrongly removed from YouTube as part of Viacom's request that 100,000 copyrighted clips be taken down to come forward and possibly assert their rights in court, CNET News.com reported on Thursday.

Viacom told News.com that only 60 or 70 videos fell into this category; they include a trailer for a documentary about a gay pro wrestler that contains no Viacom content.

The YouTube page of the filmmaker bore a notice that said: "This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Viacom International because its content was used without permission."

"That note said to anyone looking for my trailer that I violated someone's copyright. And that isn't true. That's where they defamed me," filmmaker Victor Rook told News.com.

For its part, Viacom told News.com it regrets the errors and is moving quickly to correct them. The company added that it could have cast a wider net.

"We took a very conservative and limited view of fair use," Viacom executive vice president and general counsel Michael Fricklas told News.com.

"Legally we could have taken down many more clips, but we only wanted to move on clips that were clearly infringing. Nearly all of the clips removed were clips ripped straight from our broadcast."

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http://tinyurl.com/23hgx2 (CNET)