Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic
Wired breaks the news with a thought provoking story on how copyright holders are to consider the "Fair Use" doctrine first before sending takedown notices to online sites.
Source: Wired
You can download the original 10-page case document stating the judge's decision over here (.pdf). |
And, Alexander, the court is absolutely correct in its holding. To boil it down to nuts and bolts ... a company such as Universal knows perfectly well what is or is not "fair use." Their attorneys know copyright and the fair use doctrine backwards forwards and sideways.
For them to send out blanket letters threatening legal action to individuals they
know fall within the limits of fair use is misrepresentation, pure and simple. And, under US law, you can't lie to someone (about anything) in order to make them do something to their detriment.
The case doesn't really state anything all that new with regard to the law. It just puts the industry on notice that they have to take fair use seriously ... as they should. Just because they hold a copyright doesn't mean they get to trample over those who make fair use of the copyright material. Generally, that means (1) not for profit, (2) a portion of the work only, and (3) with attribution. So, know, we can't all go out and make electronic copies of the Harry Potter books and just give them away ... that's not fair use.
In the long run, fair use actually benefits the artist, especially in this day and age. A lot of people who would likely never hear a Prince song might actually go out and buy a copy of it if they liked what they heard from watching the youtube video. I might quote several bits of Terry Practchet's books and others might find the quotes so funny ... they go out and purchase the whole series just as I did. My quotes would be fair use, just like the lady in the case's use was so clearly fair use that Universal really picked the wrong person to which to send their hate mail.
Keep in mind, in order for someone to make a case for misrepresentation, the person doing the lying must either have known, or should have known, that what they were saying was false. In this case, the fair use was so screamingly obvious, that Universal really either knew or should have known that there was a valid fair use defense.