So I made a parody of somebody's video. I knew I was taking a risk. For six months they were cool with it. They wrote me and said they had a sense of humor and they weren't going to do anything about it. But a few days ago, they decided they didn't like it after all. They asked me to remove it and threatened copyright infringement.
The original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXw17LFEgBo <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXw17LFEgBo> My version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1YkerJ0r7E <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1YkerJ0r7E> Like I say, I knew I was taking a risk when I made this video and I was prepared to take it down. But I also think I'm within the spirit of fair use. I used their copyrighted material for the purposes of criticism and parody. And they want it removed because they are offended by it. But I know being within the spirit of my own interpretation of the law isn't going to count for much. They have spoken with a lawyer and of course now they're trying to intimidate me, telling me how I'm just using unreliable wikipedia and crazy ideas of fair use from bloggers who know nothing. How far am I within or outside the bounds of fair use? I feel like which ever direction it is, it can't be by very much. -John Holden P.S. I know it's YouTube and I'm fucked. The video is coming down. But I'm asking these questions for the sake of argument and also to learn more about fair use.
