YouTube users fight back on copyright
Another battle between copyright holders and the general public. At issue now, is the posting of amateur video on YouTube that contains copyrighted material- music is most common. In the example that follows, music publishing house, Universal, serves notice to persons for using their copyrighted material. Now the self-publishers are fighting back and trying to establish their rights by claiming a fair use exemption.
Fair use is the legal defense where a person legally uses a copyrighted material for parody, comment, political speech or changes (transforms) the material.
Here, it is difficult to see how the material is changed or is used to comment on the material. An example in the article is a mother taping a child dancing to "Lets Go Crazy." Is this similar to using the song in a movie? Both result in a commercial venture- movie tickets and advertising revenue. Is this similar to playing the song on a jukebox? I think in both cases the answer is yes. But instead of going after the individual mother, perhaps the payment should come from YouTube.
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Has this ever happened to you? If you've put up a youtube video and had it taken down via a DMCA notice then this link might be for you.
http://www.chillingeffects.org/
Chilling Effects has a DMCA counterclaim notice that you can submit if you believe the the DMCA takedown notice to be in error.
Joe
I agree that the Internet is a wonderful place for polical commentary and the First Amendment guarantees that right. However, in the case of 99% of YouTube, the postings are not set up for criticism but rather personal enjoyment. I think the two situations have a distinction.