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Yoko Ono/EMI Suit Exposes Fair Use Flaw
Ian Lamont writes "Yoko Ono and EMI Records have backed down from their suit against the makers of a documentary film who used a 15-second fragment of a John Lennon song — but only after a Stanford Law School group got involved. Even though the use of the clip was clearly Fair Use, the case exposed a huge problem with the doctrine: It's becoming too expensive for people to actually take advantage of what is supposed to be a guaranteed right. Ironically, the song in question was Imagine."
Can't the film makers just countersue to get the losses incurred by this lawsuit? If not, then there's a serious problem with the judicial system.
Fair use is a legal defense to be used in court, therefor everyone who wants to avoid defending their case in a court avoids including copyrighted stuff in their works even if it's clearly fair use.
Terrible state of affairs.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Could it be any other song?
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
When John Lennon wrote "Imagine no possessions" he was worth $150 million.
why does anyone need the exclusive rights to something for more than 10 years? if you can't make your money on it in 10 years, it's time to stop flogging a dead horse, and if it's still popular it's long since passed into pop culture and should enter the public domain in recognition of all the support it's had...
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Tsk, tsk it's an insectivorous submarine!
That's *exactly* how BitTorrent works. But the doctrine of fair use also implies the purpose for which the parts are used. You can quote parts of a work, for instance, to make a criticism, but not to create a full copy of the original work.
I hate to admit it, but she's right. Everybody knows that such types of fair-use are what make record sales plummet. Why buy John Lennon's record when you've got a 15-second fragment of one of his song in a documentary that you can just reply as many times as you like?
That's right, you don't, which is why so many baby seal-killing pirates are now resorting to listening to documentary soundtracks just to avoid buying discs just so they can avoid giving $2 of royalties to starving artists like John Lennon. God I hate these bastards.
You just got troll'd!
If it wern't for Yoko's history, I'd wonder if this was more about stopping that terrible film from being associated with Lennon than any real copyright concern.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I think the following provision should be in the law: if a jury decides a lawsuit is frivolous, then the lawyers that started it should pay everything they got plus punitive damages to the part that got sued, where "punitive" means "enough to hurt". No lawyer should be allowed to get *any* profit from a frivolous lawsuit. And lawyers should know enough about the law to realize that they are embarking on a frivolous lawsuit, whose purpose is just to intimidate or send a political message.
Copyright is enforced by the public. It is entirely up to us how long we choose to enforce copyright terms. I, for one, am all for zero length copyright terms.. but some people think slightly longer terms are acceptable. Only Disney and similar megacorps think the life + 90 year crap is acceptable (until they need another 30 years added on).
How we know is more important than what we know.
Would it really be unfeasible or inadvisable, in cases as clear-cut as this, to turn up to court yourself, sans lawyer, and say "This clearly falls under fair use. Can I go home now?"
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
Way to bury the needle on the irony meter, Yoko.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Unlike European copyright law, which is premised on creators' rights, US copyright law is premised on public benefit -- encouraging creation of new works as a first and primary goal, accomplished by means of a temporary, government-provided monopoly by which creators can make a return on their work.
Perpetual copyright leads to economic inefficiencies (in which the cost to the public as a whole vastly outweighs tho benefit to the author and inheritors (if you need me to cite an peer-reviewed analysis to this effect, let me know and I'll dig up a few), to older works being lost because nobody has the rights to reproduce them (or enough economic incentive to do that at the price the present rightholder wishes to charge), and to new works which could leverage the public domain (the "creative commons") not being created.
If you want to argue that 10 years is a bad idea, that's an eminently reasonable position to take. Arguing that copyright should be perpetual, on the other hand, goes against everything US copyright law is based on, and favors a position which would be very much to the detriment of the public, including those who create new works.
Glad to see you have your head on straight and are receiving signals from the mothership. How in the world do you justify such a statement? Do you know her personally? Has she expressed her willingness to let other, more left leaning, documentary producers use her dead husbands songs?
in 1893 a school teacher made up a ditty (and most likely copied the tune and lyrical idea from other songs from that time period.)
Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all.
She died in 1916.
twenty years after "Good morning to you" was first sung a song with the same melody became popular.
Happy Birthday To You
Happy Birthday To You
Happy Birthday Dear _____
Happy Birthday To You
The sister of the deceased sued and took the copyright because the songs were obviously so similar.
My parents sang that song at my first birthday party (Illegaly I may add as it was probably in a public place like a resteraunt) and the copyright will not expire until after I am dead.
The "artist" never saw a dime.
The "artist" only created something vaguely similar.
A pack of lazy useless family members and lawyers have been living off the income for the last hundred years contributing nothing to society while doing so and being nothing but a pain.
That is the copyright system as it stands.
Work for an hour and you can gain the right to charge other people for making certain sounds in public or making certain marks on paper for the rest of your life, then your kids inherite that right and then sell it to some random company and the best thing is that it will never expire since the terms keep getting longer and longer and longer.
copyright is broken.
It should last no longer than is needed to get your book published and on the shelves or your song recorded and into peoples ipods.
Actually, in a wonderfully apt counterexample, Yoko Ono refused to let Michael Shermer use an excerpt in one of his books a few years before. (The chapter in question was on changing attitudes to religion, for maximum appropriateness.) Difference is, of course, that Shermer actually asked and deferred to her for the sake of a quiet life. She's famously protective of the Lennon estate.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
And I quote:
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
QED
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
There is no such thing as a use which is "clearly fair use."
Fair Use is not a right, it's a guiding principle used in courts (it's what is called an "equitable doctrine" and acts as an "affirmative defense" -- "equity" refers to rules which are not law but are designed to overcome unfairness in some applications of the law, and an "affirmative defense" is where you admit to breaking the law but claim that it shouldn't matter because of some extenuating circumstance). Courts weigh several different highly "fuzzy" factors in determining whether Fair Use should apply.
Some people might think this distinction is pedantic, but it's important for the following reason: people in the open-source/media-rights community need to understand that current law is not as much in their column as they'd like. This means two things:
1) You should not assume, just because some use seems fair, that you would win in a copyright infringement case based on Fair Use.
2) If you want to make Fair Use into a well-defined right, you'll need to write to your representatives in Congress.
People who submit summaries on Slashdot which mischaracterize Fair Use do injury to the political goals of the readership.
Obviously I'll defer to the opinion of a Stanford law professor, but it seems on the face of it not to be a clearly frivolous lawsuit.
Ben Stein, Mark Mathis, and the rest of the lying scumbags (see Expelled Exposed for proof) who produced this piece of dreck were using the song for a commercial purpose and were not criticizing, commenting, or reporting on it, and their disingenuous pseudo-documentary certainly doesn't qualify as teaching.
Say what you like about Yoko Ono, but wanting to avoid association with this misfire in the culture war is understandable.