Prince Sends A Takedown Over Six Second Vine Clips
from the fair-use? dept
Ah, Prince. The purple-loving musician has built up an irrational hatred for all things internet over the years, mostly focused on his belief that he should have 100% control over everything he has ever done. He's gone after companies and fans for posting pretty much anything. His music is also at the heart of the (still ongoing) Stephanie Lenz case, in which Universal Music Group issued a copyright takedown on a 29-second video with some Prince music in the background. In that case, the court said that UMG needed to take fair use into account before sending the takedown.Given that, it seems rather surprising to find out that Prince is targeting even shorter clips -- including six second clips on Vine, the Twitter offshoot/acquisition, that allows people to post short video clips no longer than 6 seconds. Vine has built up a decent following pretty quickly, and it's difficult to see how anyone could argue that music appearing in such a Vine video wouldn't be either fair use or de minimis use (or both). But don't tell Prince that.
The DMCA takedown comes from NPG Records, which is Prince's personal record label, and names eight Vine clips, which apparently have all been removed. The notice was just sent on March 26, meaning we're still within the time frame in which someone could have filed a counternotice. One hopes that counternotices are being filed, and (perhaps) that someone is willing to challenge Prince on claiming that such videos are not fair use. Would he honestly claim that such a video harms the market for his music?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright, de minimis use, dmca, fair use, prince, takedown, vine
Companies: npg records, twitter
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I had enough a long time ago and vowed never to listen to his music creations ever again and i suspect with all the negative publicity he has gained over the years he would be encouraging people to post clips of his music, even if it is just to make him a little bit relevant in the internet age.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Well, once an organization is large enough...
That, however, is an argument for limiting how much people get from making entertainments, so that they can't just do ALL that they please. Again, the solution you want -- not that Mike ever offers a solution -- is to go Populist.
Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up same place!
http://techdirt.com/
Where Mike daily proves the value of an economics degree.
04:01:31[f- 2-4]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Well, once an organization is large enough...
‘Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.’ ~ John Lennon
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Well, once an organization is large enough...
I can poop on princes album covers all day long, not a whole lot he can do about it, and not only that I can then take pics of it and call it "art" and claim full copyright
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Well, once an organization is large enough...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Well, once an organization is large enough...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Well, once an organization is large enough...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Well, once an organization is large enough...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Well, once an organization is large enough...
That's not a fact.
If that was a fact, we wouldn't be discussing infringement, derivative works or fair use, because they wouldn't exist.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
P.S. Is he still the "Artist formally known as Prince" that changed his name to that weird symbol? What a nut case!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Crazy, perhaps, but no more crazy than many other legal shenanigans.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Wow, I know way, way too much about Prince!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Using a different name that's unfamiliar to everybody would have been a larger risk.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
just tell him what he really is, that he's a prick who needs to remember how he got where he is and, like the entertainment industries, how fans are relied on for EVERYTHING and how they can make or break everything as well!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
He's attacking Vine with a (hopefully incorrect) reading of the current legislation, while UMG is on his behalf attacking YouTube. Both attacks depend on ignoring the fair use rights of the public and safe harbour provisions for service providers, and would be unlikely to be noticed, let alone fought against, if they were offline.
He might not be trying to pass new laws, but he's definitely trying to use legal methods to shut down perfectly legitimate services - because they happen to be on the internet. If not him personally, he's definitely hiring those who are.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Go Party like it is 1999 again.Better yet go Party like it was in 1979 !!! What an awesome year that was for Radical Government Hating Punk Rock Obscurities !
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Either the court sides with him and de minimus is officially non-existent on the internet which would showcase the insanities inherent to the system.
Alternatively he will lose and the court will have taken a stance on where de minimus should be for music in videos.
Both would hurt the mans reputation, but at least he has made a judge set standards for some of the fair use and de minimus claims future sites can relate to.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So long, it's been good to know you!
And FWIW, I purchase over $1000 USD in CD's and other music each year, as does my wife, and that doesn't count our frequent concert attendance.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: So long, it's been good to know you!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: So long, it's been good to know you!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How do you think that would shake out?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Harm
6 seconds of Prince music is enough to make me not want to buy it...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How it really works...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]