Appeals court strikes a blow for fair use in long-awaited copyright ruling
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/eff-scores-a-win-in-long-running-dancing-baby-copyright-case/
The judges ruled today that copyright holders "must
consider the existence of fair use before sending a takedown
notification." Universal's view that fair use is essentially an
excuse to be brought up after the fact is wrong, they held.
UMG's view of fair use solely as an "affirmative defense" is a
misnomer. "Fair use is uniquely situated in copyright law so as
to be treated differently than traditional affirmative
defenses," wrote US Circuit Judge Richard Tallman for the
majority. The long-running copyright case began when Lenz
uploaded a video of her son Holden dancing to Prince's "Let's Go
Crazy." At that time, Universal had an employee scouring YouTube
each day in order to issue takedowns on videos that used Prince
music. EFF, looking for a test case over bad DMCA takedowns,
found a sympathetic client in Lenz, a mom seeking to simply
share a video of her son with his grandmother.
- - -
*Potentially* a very big deal, and long overdue.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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