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Warner Music Forces Lessig Presentation Offline
An anonymous reader writes "Larry Lessig, known (hopefully) to everyone around here as a defender of all things having to do with consumer rights and fair use rights when it comes to copyright, is now on the receiving end of a DMCA takedown notice from Warner Music, who apparently claimed that one of Lessig's famous presentations violated on their copyright. Lessig has said that he's absolutely planning on fighting this, and has asked someone to send Warner Music a copy of US copyright law that deals with 'fair use.'"
Reader daemonburrito notes that the (rehosted) "video remains available at the time of this submission."
Lessig is probably the most knowledgeable person on the planet when it comes to US law on fair use.
Ooooh they're gonna get creamed. And I will be laughing like a drain!!
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Larry: Non-free Audio Fair Use for music constitutes 10% or 30 seconds of a song (which ever is shorter) and it must be in a low enough quality (didn't investigate the audio on this video to find out if it satisfied Ogg quality of 0 rule).
[Citation needed].
It's certainly case law if that's even true, and I'm skeptical that it's a universal rule even if true. The statues place no such requirements, and, in fact, there are many times when using an ENTIRE work would be considered fair use.
This is fundamental misthinking about copyright. Copyright (in the United States) doesn't exist to protect authors, it exists to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts." (U.S. Const., Art. I, Sec. 8) To the extent it fails to do that -- or, a fortiori, impedes such progress -- it is because the rules of copyright are poorly crafted from the perspective of the Constitutional basis of Congress's power to grant copyrights in the first place, and need to be reformed to serve that purpose.
I don't blame Lessig for ignoring her though, when reading the minutes of the case, I think its pretty cleat Sandra was attempting to derail his argument with a tangent.
Further more, if what you said was true, this just shows that judges had already made up their mind on the case and never cared about Lessig's argument to begin with.