copyright question

[JeffLearman]

What's important is not the age of the song, but whether it's copyrighted or public domain.

Anything published in the US prior to 1923 is in the public domain.

[El Lobo]

http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/Demand-that-mother-remove-home-video-from-YouTube-6503900.php

 

Court restricts rights of copyright holders

 

Federal appeals court says record label must consider fair use in bid to take down short clip of Prince song

 

A music companys demand that YouTube take down a 29-second home video of two children dancing to a song by Prince backfired Monday when a federal appeals court used the case to make it harder for copyright-holders to act against brief, non-commercial uses of their material.

 

Recording companies, motion picture studios and other copyright owners issue numerous takedown notices each day, targeting everything from home videos to campaign ads that include segments of songs or newscasts. When a copyright-holder tells a website like YouTube that one of its postings violates the holders exclusive rights to license the material, federal law requires that the posting be removed immediately.

 

But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the copyright-holder must first consider whether such a video amounts to fair use of the work, making it eligible to be legally posted. Fair use includes journalistic accounts and criticism, educational uses for teaching or research, and brief, private postings that dont damage the commercial market for the work.

The law requires copyright-holders to consider fair use before sending a takedown notification, and those that fail to do so can be held liable for damages, said Judge Richard Tallman in the 3-0 ruling, the first on the issue by any appeals court.

 

The court upheld a decision by a federal judge in San Jose allowing Stephanie Lenz, who posted the video of her children, to go to trial against Universal Music Corp., which was hired to enforce Princes copyrights. The companys takedown order kept Lenzs video off YouTube for about six weeks in 2007.

 

The ruling sends a strong message that copyright law does not authorize thoughtless censorship of lawful speech, said Lenzs lawyer, Corynne McSherry of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.

 

Congress gave copyright-holders extraordinary power to send an e-mail and take content offline, McSherry said. With that kind of power comes responsibility to consider whether the posting was authorized.

 

Representatives of Universal Music Corp. could not be immediately reached for comment. Music and motion picture industry groups filed arguments supporting the company.

 

Lenz, who lives in Pennsylvania, posted the homemade video of her children dancing and bouncing in the kitchen to Princes Lets Go Crazy, playing on a home stereo, in February 2007. About four seconds in, she asks her 13-month-old son, What do you think of the music? and he bobs up and down while holding a push toy.

 

Universal had assigned a staffer to monitor YouTube for Princes songs and send takedown notices for any postings that made what the company considered significant use of the material anything longer than a one-second excerpt of a song that isnt drowned out by background noise. The staffer decided that Lets Go Crazy was the focus of Lenzs video, and Universal directed YouTube, owned by Google, to remove the posting.

 

YouTube took the video down in early June 2007 and restored it in mid-July after Lenz argued there were no grounds for the removal. Universal did not pursue a claim of copyright infringement, but Lenz sued the company under a law allowing damages for mistaken or wrongful denial of access to a posting or publication. Although she suffered little economic harm from the takedown, the winner of such a suit can often recover attorneys fees and costs from the opposition.

 

Universal argued that it had complied with the law because it had a good-faith belief that the video violated Princes copyright. But the appeals court said the law also requires a company to consider whether the posting amounted to fair use, an exception that allows the publication of copyrighted material.

 

Tallmans opinion said a jury should decide whether Universal considered fair use before sending its takedown notice. In a partial dissent, Judge Milan Smith said Universal clearly had not considered fair use, so the only issue before the jury should be whether the posting was legal under the fair-use exception.

 

To watch the video, go to: http://sfg.ly/1Obj8Wz .

 

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko

 

[MathOfInsects]

Precisely.

[DulceLabs.com]

Precisely.

 

Yes because a 29 second snippet of a song played in the background of a video on YouTube is what we were talking about in this thread.

[MathOfInsects]

So no more slippery slope, huh?

[DulceLabs.com]

So no more slippery slope, huh?

On the contrary, the decision adds more grease to the hill.

 

 

 

 

[MathOfInsects]

So no more slippery slope, huh?

On the contrary, the decision adds more grease to the hill.

 

Not the ruling. Your position. You just switched sides. You had been taking an absolutist stance:

 

As long as no money or commodification is involved, no real claim of damages exists.

 

Sorry, but that is incorrect. Legally, the statutory "damage" occurs as soon as the copyright is infringed, as the owner was deprived of their control of the work.

 

Now that someone has posted an example of the court disagreeing with you, you've turned relativist:

 

Yes because a 29 second snippet of a song played in the background of a video on YouTube is what we were talking about in this thread.

 

All good with me, it simply points out that this is a grayer area than most people like to admit. Copyright is a really interesting issue (to me), involving cultural dominance and appropriation, and people's discomfort with the nuances of it is the most interesting part of all.

 

On this board, there were was some fairly widespread mocking of the infringement case against Uptown Funk. On the other hand, there are some fairly intrenched opinions about the legality or morality of downloading music. To my eye, these are contradictory positions. And the reasons--or guesses about them--for that contradiction are what interest me. (On the other hand, someone's Google-fu does not interest me at all.)

 

Since I know everyone was wondering what interests me.

 

Now it smells like dead horse in here. Happy trails and may your weekends be strong ones.

[Synthoid]

Now it smells like dead horse in here.

 

Oh thanks... I just ate lunch awhile ago.

[MathOfInsects]

For those interested in such things:

 

Happy Birthday copyright nullified

 

 

 

 

 

[The Real MC]

Wow, big wins in one month for fair use and public domain!

[Ken Beaumont]

My biggest complaint is why does a composer of a song get copyright for his entire life and his beneficiaries for 70 years after that yet a patent for an invention that saves human lives would only last 20!

 

And why should software have both a patent and copyright?

 

My opinion is 20 years for both and if you haven't made enough money or invested poorly tough. The only ones really benefiting or corporations.

[synthizen2]

If the new work contains recognizable melodic and lyric elements of the underlying song, it will be considered a derivative work and therefore subject to infringement claims.

 

Well, it all depends on whether the original writer thinks it is worth pursuing legally, and whether a lawyer can be found who will find it in his/her financial interests to pursue it.

 

For instance, George Harrison did face a legal challenge to all or parts of his song "My Sweet Lord" which were supposedly stolen from the early 60s song "She's So Fine". I can't remember whether or not George lost that lawsuit.

 

On the other hand, I can't ever remember the rock group Free (Paul Rodgers, et al) suing Steve Miller for his stealing of the guitar lick from "All Right Now" for his song "Keep On Rockin Me Baby"... or the group Bandfinger suing Joe Jackson for his stealing of part of the signature melody line from "Day After Day" for his song "Breaking Us In Two".

 

But those all seem to be similar cases.