Taken from an article on contentagenda.com via LA Times
Prince and the toddler; Should copyright law apply to a YouTube video of
a baby dancing to 'Let's Go Crazy'?
Los Angeles Times , July 25, 2008 Friday Home Edition
Stephanie Lenz of Gallitzin, Pa., thought it might be fun last year to
film her 13-month-old son Holden zipping around the kitchen while a
Prince single from the 1980s played in the background. Then she did what
she'd done with several home videos of her toddlers playing or cavorting
to music: She posted the half-minute clip of Holden to YouTube so
friends and family could see it. Four months later, Universal Music
Publishing Group sent YouTube a letter demanding the removal of nearly
200 videos involving Prince songs, including Lenz's, on the grounds that
the clips violated copyrights.
The removal of Lenz's dancing-baby video prompted a courtroom battle
over how copyright holders defend their property online, and
particularly on sites such as YouTube that rely on consumers to supply
most of the content. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology
advocacy group, accused Universal of making a misleading claim of
infringement because Lenz used an excerpt from Prince's "Let's Go Crazy"
legally. Specifically, the group's lawyers contended, the fuzzy
mini-movie was a clear example of "fair use" -- a limitation in federal
copyright law that allows copyrighted material to be used in news
reports, commentaries, educational materials, parodies and some
noncommercial contexts.
Universal responded by claiming, among other things, that copyright
holders never have to consider fair-use claims before demanding that
their works be removed from websites. Regardless of its legal merits,
such a policy could cripple fair use by making it vulnerable to
mindless, automated enforcement by copyright owners. Consider what might
happen to online news coverage, reviews and blog posts that include
excerpts of copyrighted works. Sure, a publisher can appeal to have its
material restored, but the process can take weeks (more than a month, in
Lenz's case). By the time it goes back up, its value may have
evaporated. Negative reviews and unflattering commentaries that included
images or clips would be particularly at risk.
There should be some deterrent against copyright holders attacking fair
uses online, deliberately or otherwise. At the very least, they should
have to look at potentially infringing uses of their works and consider
fair-use law before sending take-down notices. The courts may be the
ultimate arbiter of individual fair-use claims, but copyright holders
shouldn't be free to ignore the guidance provided by federal statutes
and previous court rulings. Besides, taking down baby videos won't make
Universal or Prince any richer in the long run. They'd be better off
working with YouTube to capitalize on fans' enthusiasm than scrubbing
the site clean of his hits.
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