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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Copyright "Fair Use" May be Stronger...But Wait

How does it happen? A lady posts a 30 second clip of her kid dancing to Prince. She posts it on YouTube. Universal Music stumbles across it and issues a "take down notice" to YouTube based on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). This may be a precursor to a lawsuit. Maybe not. But either way, the video gets taken down.

This lady's different. She sues.

Her first complaint gets shot down. But the EFF steps in to assist and the judge refuses to dismiss her lawsuit. She claims that Universal abused the DMCA by failing to factor in whether her use was "fair" under copyright law. The Judge agreed to let the case proceed (despite the fact that she may still lose).

The judge's ruling could help reduce the number of take down notices sent by copyright owners to sites like YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, etc., but we'll see.

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