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Copyright Professor's Lecture Removed From YouTube Over Sony Content-ID Claim (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by timothy on from the well-that's-rich dept.

ShaunC writes: William Fisher, a professor of intellectual property law at Harvard, posted to YouTube a lecture titled "The Subject Matter of Copyright: Music." In discussing the complexities of music licensing and cover songs, Fisher played several short clips of music by Hendrix, Santana, and others. Sony responded by having the lecture removed from YouTube, ignoring any fair use protection in excerpting works for educational purposes. While the video was restored after public backlash, most YouTube users don't have Harvard Law School backing them up. Once again, a company has issued overreaching copyright claims with no penalty or consequence for harming an innocent party.

6 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Re:until people get punished for false claims by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 5, Informative

    Youtube has a bit of a larger problem. Nobody gets punished for false claims. You don't even need a person, because Youtube will automate it for you. And while people can file claims as quickly as they'd like, instantly taking videos down or stealing ad revenue, it can take months to go through the review process of putting a video back up. It's a crazily one-sided system. Nostalgia Critic, a long-time movie reviewer, talks about it in a recent video.

  2. Re:DMCA has consequences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you claim a) you own copyright or represent the owner of the copyright on a particular Jimi Hendrix song, b) the defendant copied the song (in part or in entirety), c) the part of the song is not valid fair use, and d) the defendant did not secure permission before copying, the only claim subject to perjury charges is a). As long as a) is true, issuing a take-down notice even when knowing one or more of b)-d) are false has no consequence.

    The movie and music industries got vastly more than their money's worth with our copyright laws, including the DMCA.

  3. Fair use doctrine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    As much as I hate copyright trolls, Sony in primis; people most of time really don't understand the fair use doctrine.
    What is and what is not fair use can only be decided by a judge and it varies case by case. There is no law stating what is precisely fair use and what isn't. And this is what gives the copyright trolls such an advantage. They have simply to say it's not fair use and bingo you're censored. And your only legal recourse is to go to court. And even then because fair use doctrine is so vague it's possible the judge is going to go against you. The situation would be much easier if instead of the fair use doctrine we had a law stating exactly and clearly what are the boundaries of fair use.

    1. Re:Fair use doctrine by dunkindave · · Score: 5, Informative

      I came to post similar information. Fair Use is an affirmative defense, meaning you admit you violated the letter of the law (used part of a copyright work without express permission), but you had a legally acceptable reason for doing so. The rights holder has the legal right to claim any use is infringing, and it is up to the user to show they their usage falls within one of the allowable exceptions, such as being a short excerpt, or a parody, or a critique, etc. Where the boundaries are between a short excerpt and a long one, is left as an exercise for the jurist, as are the boundaries for the other exceptions. In this case, Sony claimed the professor used songs without permission, and they are correct, so they complained to Youtube. At that point, it became the professor's responsibility to prove his use was allowable under the law according to the fair use doctrine (note it is a doctrine and not technically a law), which he appears to have done, at least to Youtube's satisfaction.

  4. Re:DMCA penalty by Cramer · · Score: 3, Informative

    You need to use paper -- the tried and true method of all things legal. Youtube gets too many crackpots, like you, doing this sort of shit, so they ignore you. Serve an actual from-a-lawyer DMCA notice to youtube (and Sony), and they will act on it. They cannot legally ignore it. I suspect 100% of your takedown requests were complete bunk, and Sony's legal team would toss you into a wood chipper if you actually filed them.

  5. Re:Why can't YouTube fix this? by sjames · · Score: 3, Informative

    They're not legally obligated to let complainants use the automated fast track system. As long as they respond to an actual on-paper notice within a reasonable time of receiving it by mail, they're within the law.

    There's also no reason they can't allow the uploader to counter the claim instantly and put the video back up.