Slashdot Mirror
Vimeo Sued For Audio Infringement
USS_Natas writes "Capitol Records and other labels have sued Vimeo in federal court, charging that the site's emphasis on 'original works' only extends to videos, and that songs are widely used on Vimeo without a license. The plaintiffs hope to prove that Vimeo staffers know about the infringement, since they've been doing it themselves." NewTeeVee has a PDF of the court filing in a Scribd frame.
Where do i get in on this deal? Since rational logic no longer applies, i want to sue someone too !
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Just this once, the record companies have a valid complaint.
While IMO they do have a point (well apart from live concert footage), however I don't see what they want to achieve nobody watches a lip dub on vimeo instead of buying the actual record. So while they will almost certainly win the case, they won't actually win anything and will lose out on free marketing.
preemptive pro-tip, if your going to use the term fair-use please understand what it means first.
because if they can't make this stick, they're going to disappear.
Vimeo is in a perfect position to request that they DO DO.
Copyright infringement is one of those things that can actually rear up and byte the **AAs in the butt.
By claiming first amendment rights on the ENTIRE file, audio and video and written text of the actual content of the file, they can force the issue that the AA's are, in fact, stepping on each others territory and refuse to comply with their requests until the establishment of a proper rights infringement body.
By setting the MPAA lawyers on the RIAA lawyers, Vimeo can ask that the issue of content creation be settled once and for all in a comprehensive manner.
Since the RIAA and the MPAA are not entitled to settle the matter by themselves, they end up effectively negating each others arguments.
Now of course the difficulty of settling all of this means that the litigation will pend for years, and may very well see the establishment of an ÜberAA to oversee the FAIR distribution of royalties, but at least it i the end of the various AAs.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Typical Vimeo user profile: "30-something Caucasian with a HUGE iTunes library, prosumer camera gear and/or a copy of Processing, with a penchant for shallow-depth-of-field effects."
There's non-fair-use copyright-infringement all over the place on that site, and it's absolutely weird that nobody at Vimeo HQ has even batted an eyelash. Really, it's that bad. (I'm a big fan of CC myself, and I think that if people would just stop using RIAA tunes to enhance their own creative works, the problem would solve itself)
I don't find the lawsuit itself particularly interesting. From the sound of it, I believe Capitol will win on at least one count of copyright infringement. The video itself obviously infringes, though I don't see how it does any damage to Capitol's property. Still, their hook is compelling from a legal point of view. Check out this excerpt from NewTeeVee:
What's interesting about this is that Vimeo's appeal is the high quality of its unique, user generated content. Just like in the video, the compelling element is not the song but they way in which their employees are lip syncing. I would go so far as to say that it's more interesting than the original video, though I haven't seen that in a decade. Vimeo is one of the user generated content sites that is relatively free from blatant copying. Perhaps copyrighted works are used as background music for these videos, but they are rarely, if ever, the central focus.
That's why Vimeo is being sued. Not because their site is rife with copyright infringement. Not because their site encourages infringement over unique content. Specifically because the community at their site has flourished into one that consistently puts out unique user generated content of high quality. Vimeo is like YouTube with the noise turned down. This scares the pants off the content industry.
As the trend towards Internet Television strengthens the monopolies of the content industry weaken. Quality user generated content is a direct competitor to professionally generated content. The content industry has a long history of using the legal system to ensure that they squash the competition. That's what they're doing here.
I feel bad for Vimeo. They made an innocent video to show what a fun-loving bunch of wacky kids they are at their little Web 2.0 start up. They probably thought that like other various mashups and non-malicious infringements that their video would either fly under the radar or become a success such that the content owner would appreciate the attention drawn to their work and see the positive aspects of it. What they didn't realize is that they've become the nemesis of big business. Big business does not treat its adversaries well.
I can't really feel bad for Vimeo here. Vimeo is well known for removing indie developer's video game videos without warning (see the Wolfire vimeowned post -- World of Goo and Fez are two other examples). Vimeo claim this is because of some copyright fears -- even though the developers obviously have the rights to show their own games!
Looks like the tables have turned -- maybe if Vimeo had policed actual copyright violations instead of taking down video game developer's videos they would not be in this situation.
They have issues with lip-syncing or lip-dubbing? Who should be upset? These *aa do it themselves and cheat the public out of the their performances.
I think that indicates either hypocrisy or some sort of mental disorder; perhaps both.
In 2009, US pop singer Britney Spears was " 'extremely upset' over the savaging she has received after lip-syncing at her Australian shows", where ABC news Australia reported that "[d]isappointed fans ...stormed out of Perth's Burswood Dome after only a few songs"
In 2004, US pop singer Ashlee Simpson appeared on the live comedy TV show Saturday Night Live, and during her performance, "she was revealed to apparently be lip-synching". According to "her manager-father[,]...his daughter needed the help because acid reflux disease had made her voice hoarse."
During the 2009 Superbowl, "Jennifer Hudson's flawless performance of the national anthem" was "lip-synced ...to a previously recorded track, and apparently so did Faith Hill who performed before her"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip_sync
The first sign that the group was lip-synching happened in late 1989 during a live performance on MTV at the Lake Compounce theme park in Bristol, Connecticut. As they performed onstage live in front of an audience, the recording of the song "Girl You Know It's True" jammed and began to skip, repeating the partial line "Girl, you know it's..." over and over on the speakers. They continued to pretend to sing and dance onstage for a few more moments. Then they both ran offstage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli
The use of the Vimeo employee's quote "original video ... not original music" as evidence that the Vimeo is encouraging copyright infringement is a telling reflection on the music industry's idiotic hubris / disconnection from reality. All non-original music is Big Content music?
Meh.
Therefore the message being sent is that violations of EMI's intellectual property may or may not be (... are not :p) acted against by Vimeo.
Vimeo cannot act against the use of EMI's music unless EMI gives them cause for action. TFA says that the labels have already lost a similar battle against Veoh, because Veoh smartly defended themselves that they are protected under the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA. The only reason Vimeo might not be similarly protected is if the labels can somehow show that Vimeo is actively encouraging the infringement (as opposed to merely passively waiting for DMCA takedowns). My point is that the quote in question would seem to be far from being a clear incitement to infringe on EMI's copyrighted music unless one assumes that most non-original music is EMI's music.
BTW, this doesn't mean that I think the labels will necessarily lose. The quote is only one small piece of the evidence which is presented in the lawsuit.
Even though you are probably correct on a per-work basis, the labels would be laughed out of court if they tried to use it as an formal argument ("Your Honor, we have a portfolio of soooo many songs, no one else could possibly create a new original work not based on one of our songs!"). So I think both of us are right, in a way.
TFA makes the point that the record companies already lost a similar suit against Veoh, when Veoh claimed safe harbor under the DMCA. The only reason Vimeo would not be similarly protected is if the labels can show that Vimeo is actively encouraging the infringements of their copyrighted works.
So even if it is clear that lots of Vimeo videos use unlicensed music owned by the labels, it is not clear that the suit is valid.
The MPAA have nothing to do with this litigation, since the video content in question are original works ("lip dubs").
Even if the MPAA were involved, they would have little trouble cooperating with RIAA. If someone were to post a clip of MPAA video redubbed with new RIAA audio, both organizations could sue independently. In other words, there would be no need for them to cooperate in the first place.
You are greatly confused, but I found your post highly imaginative (and terrifically wishful thinking)...
About a year ago, I uploaded a music video on vimeo. Two weeks later, I received an email from vimeo informing me that my account has been deleted, due to a complaint from the RIA. Don't get me wrong or anything, it was a music mix, that happend to have a few clips from the original video. Regardless if it was fair or not, I really hated their attitude, for deleting the account without any warnings. What I found disturbing was that the email almost accused me of being some sort of thief, quite disturbing for an automated message.
If the ars report is true, I hope they're going down.
To me the real problem of this post is that it's just so difficult to find music to use on your video work.
:-)
There should be a way to buy, on a reasonable way, the right to add some music to my holiday videos...
There are a few initiatives out there such as Jamendo but we should be able to license more music to be included in home brewed videos... And guess what the industry could even make some profit from that
In cyberspace nobody knows you're a cat!
You really believe that I can't go on Vimeo right now and find a video lipsync with audio owned by Capitol Records? Care to put money on that claim?
No, I call your one song by Capitol Records and raise you two by EMI. I haven't checked, but I'm perfectly willing to take your word for it that Vimeo is chock full of videos with Capitol Records music. It has nothing to do with the point of my post.
My post has nothing to do with the actual videos which are on Vimeo, and everything to do with the legal filing by the record labels. My post is only about one specific legal argument which is presented in the filing, which claims that because an employee of Vimeo has stated the Vimeo is about "original video, not original music", this means that Vimeo is actively encouraging the infringement of copyrights on Capitol Records/RIAA music. Making that logical equivalence in the legal argument, in my eyes, is making the statement that most/all non-original music is music which belongs to Capitol Records/RIAA.
More clear now?