Over the past few years, copyright infringement has become part of everyday vocabulary at the YouTube offices. This should come as no surprise considering the main function of the site is to post and share user-generated video content to the public. Most of the infringement cases have involved users recording and posting television programs, movies, concerts that the networks and production companies do not appreciate. This is completely reasonable and understandable. Similarly to illegally downloading and sharing music, these corporations have a right to have the videos removed from YouTube, and in some cases press charges. If movies and television shows were always available without have to pay to see it or rent it etc, the artists, actors crew and anyone else involved in the making, would be the ones to lose money as well. I think all of this is relatively common sense. But what about posting a home video of your child, a young toddler, singing and dancing along to a Prince song? Where can the line be drawn?
Everyday you see videos with disclaimers such as “this video has been removed by the network due to copyright…”, imagine if any video that contained any song in the background that was not “paid for” was removed from YouTube. There would be a lot less videos that’s for sure. So would some girl singing her heart out to Lady Gaga be removed because the song is audible in it? Or a song posted with lyrics even thought you purchased the song and just made the video for fun? There are so many examples of these questions that can be asked. At some point by removing all the content with so-called “copyrighted content” would lead to destroying YouTube entirely.
Granted it is hard to monitor a site that has grown so exponentially over the years and that’s why it is unfortunate but corporations feel they need to make an example of people. In 2007, Stephanie Lenz posted a video of her young toddler dancing to “Let’s go Crazy” by Prince. Universal Music Group, the owner of the song rights, wrote to YouTube demanding that the video be removed. YouTube of course proceeded to take down the video. This brings about the question of Fair Use.
According to the doctrine, Fair Use “allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship”. Combining forces with a free-speech advocate group, Lenz found that she was within Fair Use of the song. You would think this would stop here, but no.
Since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was born in 1998, companies like Universal have been on a rampage to stop every form of copyright they “believe” exists. After Lenz, decided to fight back, Universal brought out the big guns. Stating that she was in “bad faith” and had unclean hands for trying to pursue damages. Let’s be real here, it’s a home video, a cute one that this woman just wanted people to see. It’s not going to stop people from buying Prince’s music, or say hey I don’t need to buy the song I can just watch this cute little kid dance to it.
Although Lenz will not recover damages, she will collect legal fees from Universal. This case is important because “it raises the question of whether a media company can be held liable for pursuing a takedown without a full consideration of fair use.” This is in no way saying that Universal doesn’t have the right to take down videos they believe to be copyright infringement. However, it doesn’t give them the right to take down videos without fully determining if they are outside the Fair Use doctrine.
YouTube has not taken copyright infringement lightly either. On the site they have a specific outline of what copyright infringement is and how to know if you are in violation. I’d say that this is very responsible of them (most likely because of all the previous lawsuits) but at least it makes users aware of the difference.
To find out more about the case here are some related articles:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6200QZ20100301?type=technologyNews
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/blog-post/1594263/music-industry-beaten-dancing-tot
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/01/2833574.htm?section=justin
