Mom Sues Music Company Over Baby Video Removal

penguin_dance writes "A Pennsylvania mom is fighting back, suing Universal Music Publishing Group for having a home movie taken down off of YouTube. The movie, featuring her 18-month old bouncing to Prince's song, 'Let's Go Crazy,' was cited for removal by the Group for copyright infringement. Mom Stephanie Lenz was first afraid they'd come after her — then she got angry. She got YouTube to put the video back up, she's enlisted the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and she's filed a civil lawsuit (pdf). 'I thought even though I didn't do anything wrong that they might want to file some kind of suit against me, take my house, come after me. And I didn't like feeling afraid ... I didn't like feeling that I could get in trouble for something as simple as posting a home video for my friends and family to see.'"

Comments

I know Prince is a scary guy, but this ....

[trolltalk.com]

FTFA:

A well-placed source directly involved in the situation confirmed to ABC News that Prince was directly involved in seeking the takedown of Lenz's video.

"This guy scours the Internet,'' the source said of the legendary artist, who once changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol and wrote the word "Slave'" on his cheek until he won back the rights to his music from another publishing company.

"He's really intense about this stuff," the source said, adding that Lenz's video "happened to be one of many'' that artist apparently located online and demanded be taken down.

Doesn't the guy have better things to do with his time than to send takedown notices for 29-second video clips?

Hey, maybe he'll have to change his name again to avoid being known as the Bozo formerly known as Prince ...

Re:Offense is the best defence?

[Wavicle]

To knee jerk reaction guy who didn't read the links:

1. She talked to a lawyer.
2. That lawyer is the EFF.
3. They're pretty experienced in this matter, and they intend to collect when she does.
4. Seeking a declaratory judgment is a pretty reasonable thing to do.
5. Universal doesn't get to trample over fair use just because they're a big company.
6. A company that knowingly tramples your rights should pay a fine.

Re:Legal Precedence?

[pla]

could someone explain to me what right she had to use the song in the video?

I have to suspect you as a troll, but since you phrased it so politely...

The song played in the backround. In Real Life. The baby danced to it. The whole sickening glurge-factor aside (I agree, "for the kids" has no more meaning for "us" than it does for "them"), "documentary" falls well within the bounds of "fair use". And even if it didn't, the scene still happened. You can argue with the law, you can't argue with reality.

So, what right does she have to the song? The same right you or I or anyone has to their own lives, to our own culture, and to hell with the law if someone can twist it to say otherwise. I can tell you my day sucked, and Hoover can go pound sand.

Have you actually watched the video?

[MacDork]

Here it is. UMG doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Re:Tag goodforher !

[king-manic]

There's some truth to that, but how exactly are the music moguls harming her child by not allowing her to publish copyright music without a license? Because copyright doesn't extend that far. A baby video with music would qualify as fair use/ derivative work.

Re:Tag goodforher !

[BinaryOpty]

Yes, the reason companies have to license work is because they're making money off of them in effect by having them inside their movie. The mom wasn't making money off of the video and the video wasn't going to steal sales away from people who would want to buy the song, so she was within fair use rights to use the song.

Re:Tag goodforher !

[orgelspieler]

I'll never understand the persistence of the myth that you must get clearance for every little sound in your film. The intarweb is full of pretty smart people warning that any image or sound in your films is a copyright violation unless you get permission from the copyright holder. One even said if somebody was wearing an identifiable t-shirt, you had to blur it if you couldn't get "clearance." This is all nonsense. People perpetuating this myth are eroding our fair use rights. IANAL, but I am a copyright holder, and I have talked to a few lawyers about it.

That being said, I'm not sure this ladies video is fair use. The music is effectively a soundtrack and comprises a large portion of the video's content. If I heard my (CC-BY-SA) music in the background of a video like this, I would at least expect a "music by orgelspieler" somewhere in the video description.

Let's recap fair use and how it applies to this case:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Obviously, the only item this might fail on is the amount. 29 seconds is about 10% of the song. You have to meet all four requirements to count as fair use. This is a great case for the courts to help explain what is and isn't allowed. Or better yet, maybe it will serve as a touchstone for those jerks in Washington to get off their asses and do something about this vast gray area that is diminishing the creative output of the nation. Copyright is supposed encourage creativity, not stifle it.

Re:Tag goodforher !

[BinaryOpty]

A slightly analogous argument is to say "well someone could use a knife to kill someone, we can't allow people to have knives then." Just because she could abuse fair use to make 8 movies each using 30 different seconds of a 4 minute song with the intent of people piecing them together into the original song doesn't mean fair use should be illegal, it means abusing fair use to make 8 movies each using 30 different seconds of a 4 minute song with the intent of people piecing them together into the original song should be illegal, which it is. A big portion of that is intent: in the presented case the person is intending for the music to be a replacement of the purchased version, just like someone buying a knife to cut veggies is different from someone buying a knife to murder someone with.

Re:Tag goodforher !

[autophile]

The intarweb is full of pretty smart people warning that any image or sound in your films is a copyright violation unless you get permission from the copyright holder. One even said if somebody was wearing an identifiable t-shirt, you had to blur it if you couldn't get "clearance." This is all nonsense. People perpetuating this myth are eroding our fair use rights. IANAL, but I am a copyright holder, and I have talked to a few lawyers about it.

It's not just "on teh Intarweb" that people are saying this. This idea is taught in courses on film production, and the reasons are very simple:

1. You can sue anyone for anything, at any time.

2. Copyright is a big stinking swamp filled with alligators and corpses. Nobody knows which way a judge will jump.

Because of these, copyright holders feel free to sue the heck out of anyone using their copyrighted material in any way, even if that way is technically legal -- because who knows? The judge might just side with you and you might get some money. Large corporate holders have plenty of money to burn, so there's no downside to suing for them.

Conversely, users of copyrighted material have a great deal to lose, even if they win. Fighting cases in court costs money, and successfully defending yourself can be Pyrrhic. I suppose if you're a large corporate user, you wouldn't care monetarily if you lose, but it could cause PR issues, I guess.

In any case, the reason people are told to get clearance for everything is that doing so avoids the whole issue. Going back to the stinking swamp analogy, it's clearly best to just go around it. That's why the "myth" of requiring clearance for everything is perpetuated. It's a Pascal's wager.

No, I don't like it either.

--Rob