Dancing Babies, The DMCA, Fair Use And Whether Companies Should Pay For Bogus Takedowns
from the still-in-court dept
Earlier this week the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in the appeal of Lenz v. Universal. This was the case where Stephanie Lenz sued Universal because Universal had sent YouTube a takedown notice demanding it delete the home movie she had posted of her toddler dancing, simply because music by Prince was audible in the background. It's a case whose resolution has been pending since 2007, despite the fact that it involves the interpretation of a fundamental part of the DMCA's operation.The portion of the DMCA at issue in this case is Section 512 of the copyright statute, which the DMCA added in 1998 along with Section 1201. As with Section 1201, Section 512 reflects a certain naivete by Congress in thinking any part of the DMCA was a good idea, rather than the innovation-choking and speech- chilling mess it has turned out to be. But looking at the statutory language you can kind of see how Congress thought it was all going to work, what with the internal checks and balances they put into the DMCA to prevent it from being abused. Unfortunately, while even as intended there are some severe shortcomings to how this balance was conceptualized, what's worse is how it has not even been working as designed.
One such problem is with the content takedown system incorporated into Section 512. The point of Section 512 is to make it possible for intermediaries to host the rich universe of online content users depend on intermediaries to host. It does this by shifting the burden of having to police users' content for potential copyright infringement from these intermediaries to copyright owners, who are better positioned to do it. Without this shift more online speech would likely be chilled, either because the fear of being held liable for hosting users' infringing content would prompt intermediaries to over-censor legitimate content, or because the possibility of being held liable for user content would make being an Internet intermediary hosting it too crushingly high a risk to attempt at all.
Copyright owners often grumble about having the policing be their responsibility, but these complaints ignore the awesome power they get in return: by merely sending a takedown notice they are able, without any litigation or court order or third-party review, to cause online speech to be removed from the Internet. It is an awesome power, and it is one that Congress required them to use responsibly. That's why the DMCA includes Section 512(f), as a mechanism to hold wayward parties accountable when they wield this powered unjustifiably.
Unfortunately this is a section of the statute that has lost much of its bite. A 2004 decision by the Ninth Circuit, Rossi v. MPAA, read into the statute a certain degree of equivocation about what the "good faith" requirement of a takedown notice actually demanded. Nonetheless, the statute on its face still requires that a valid takedown notice include a statement that the party sending it has "a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law." (emphasis added)
The big question in this case is what the "or the law" part means in terms of making a takedown notice legitimate. No one is disputing that the notice that took down the dancing baby video was authorized by the agent in charge of administering the rights to Prince's music (at the hearing we learned that this is no longer Universal Music, but it was back then). But copyright is always contextual. In other words, just because someone uses (e.g., by posting to the Internet) a copyrighted work does not mean they have automatically infringed that work's copyright. There may well be circumstances enabling that use, like a license (including a statutory or compulsory license), or fair use.
Whether the "or the law" part included authorization pursuant to fair use is what a significant part of the hearing addressed. Universal said that it didn't, arguing that fair use was only an affirmative defense. By "affirmative defense" Universal meant that fair use was just something you could argue as a defense to being accused of copyright infringement in a lawsuit but not something that existed more integrally as part of copyright law itself. As such, Universal argued, it was not necessary to consider it when sending a takedown notice claiming that the use in question was not authorized.
EFF, arguing for Lenz, disagreed, however, arguing that the articulation of fair use in the statute, at 17 U.S.C. § 107, made fair use more than just a defense; rather, it is a statutory limitation constraining the scope of the copyright owner's exclusive rights and just as much a part of the law as the parts enumerating those rights. As a result, the EFF argued, a copyright owner sending a takedown notice always has to consider whether the rights the notice is seeking to vindicate are at all constrained by the sort of use being made of the work. If the copyright owner doesn't do that then it could be subject to the sanctions of 512(f).
Although one can never read the tea leaves from an oral argument, the judges did not seem to buy Universal's argument that fair use was just an affirmative defense. They seemed more persuaded by the EFF's position that it was enough a part of the copyright statute for at least some consideration of it to be required for a takedown notice to be valid. But then the court became concerned with the question of how much consideration was needed. After all, as Universal suggested (and EFF disagreed with), there may even be some question about whether the use of Prince's music in the dancing baby video was itself fair. Fair use is a very squishy thing always dependent on the particular context of a particular use of a copyrighted work. Often it takes massive amounts of litigation to determine whether a use was fair, so the judges spent a lot of time questioning both parties about what a copyright owner (or its agent), if the statute requires them to consider fair use, must actually do on that front in order to not run afoul of the law's requirements when sending takedown notices.
Universal argued that because it (and other similarly situated copyright holders) needed to send millions of takedown notices it would simply be too burdensome to have to consider fair use for each and every one of them. To this the EFF suggested that tools may be available to help triage the likely contenders needing closer analysis, but something else the EFF said I think drives the point home more aptly.
The DMCA also includes a "put back" process, at Section 512(g), so that Internet users' whose content has wrongfully been removed can have it replaced. Universal argued that this process should be enough to deal with any wrongful takedowns, as it allows for wrongfully removed content to be replaced. (Universal also argued that this "put back" notice was also necessary to give the copyright holder notice that fair use might be an issue to consider.) But if this were the case then why have a Section 512(f) in the statute at all? There is nothing in the statute that suggests that a "put back" notice needs to happen for Section 512(f) to be able to operate. Furthermore, although the record in this case was unfortunately poor as to what percentage of removed content was ever put back pursuant to 512(g) put back notices, as the EFF noted, even if it were a very small percentage of removed content, a small percentage of millions of instances suggests that quite a bit of non-infringing content is still getting removed.
Moreover, there is no reason to suspect that the content that has been restored in response to these put back notices represents the entire universe of wrongfully removed content. There is little basis to presume that everyone else who had their content removed simply shrugged it off as a fair cop. Because a put back notice can conspicuously put a user in the line of fire of a copyright owner many users might not have wanted to tempt the trouble. Also, as the EFF observed, the DMCA takedown system is fairly labyrinth and often needs the assistance of counsel to help navigate it. This form of support is likely not available to most, and even in the case of Ms. Lenz it did not readily result in her home video of her kid dancing being restored.
Ultimately Universal is arguing that this outcome is ok: despite this harm to legitimate speech, copyright owners should nonetheless be entitled to cause millions and millions of instances of user-generated content to disappear from the Internet with very little effort, inconvenience, or oversight on their part. But it's an argument that fails to recognize just what a privilege the takedown system represents. It is a huge shortcut, giving private parties the extraordinary power to be censors over Internet content without the trouble and expense of a lawsuit to first determine whether their rights have truly been infringed. With the DMCA copyright owners become judge, jury, and executioner over other people's speech all on their own, and when they decide to sentence content for disappearance they get to use the takedown notice as the gun to the head of the intermediary to force it do the deed.
Universal spent a lot of time arguing that the DMCA was intended to be this sort of shortcut in order to be a "rapid response" system to online infringements. But the "rapid response" the DMCA offers is that copyright owners don't first have to go to court. Nothing in statute suggests copyright owners are entitled to a response so rapid that they are excused from exercising the appropriate care a valid takedown notice requires – or that even a lawsuit would require. As Universal would have it, they get to be censors over other people's speech without any of the risk normally involved if they had to use the courts to vindicate their rights. Note that nothing in the DMCA precludes a copyright owner from suing an Internet user who has infringed its copyright. But with a lawsuit comes the risk that a copyright owner might have to pay the fees and costs of the defendant should their claims of infringement found unmeritorious (including because the targeted use was fair). According to Universal, however, copyright owners should face no similar consequence should the claims underpinning their takedown notices be similarly specious. Copyright owners should simply be able to cause content to be deleted at will, with no risk of any penalty to them for being wrong.
But that's not what the statute says. As was also argued at the hearing, Section 512(f) creates the penalty necessary to deter wrongful takedowns because without there being one, all the risk of the takedown system would be borne by those whose free speech rights (both to speak freely and to freely consume what others have said) are undermined by copyright owners' glib censorship. As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility, and it hardly misconstrues Congress's intent, or the express language of the statute, to demand copyright owners to carefully exercise that responsibility before letting their takedown notices fly, and to sanction them when they don't.
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Filed Under: 512(f), abuse, copyright, dancing baby, dmca, fair use, stephanie lenz, takedowns
Companies: eff, universal music
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The best law money can buy
As for Universal's argument that there's just too much for copyright holders to deal with, and therefor they should be allowed to 'file first, consider never', I dearly hope the courts throw that one out as being completely ridiculous. The idea that 'well they can always re-post wrongfully targeted content again, so that makes it okay' only makes it worse.
Lots of people speed, cops can only catch so many people, does that mean that they should be allowed to hand out tickets at random, whether someone is guilty or not? After all, the accused can always skip a day or two of work and go to court to contest the charges, so wrongfully ticketing someone should be no big deal, right?
The same argument applied elsewhere would be shot down in court without delay, so I would hope they get the same treatment here, even if they are using the magic word, 'copyright' to defend the twisting of the law.
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Is It Property, Or Isn’t It?
If I own a piece of property, policing it is my responsibility. That’s how property works. It is up to me to enforce my “No Trespassing” signs, I can’t pass the blame on to the roading authorities and bus operators for letting people off next to my land.
It’s funny how they can claim that user-submitted content sites like YouTube should be able to do more to spot copyright infringers, yet the media companies themselves admit that they find it too hard to do the exact same thing. Here’s a tip, people: unlike the laws of Government, the laws of the real world are the same for everybody!
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Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It?
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Re: Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It?
I believe the issues are so big here that the judge will suddenly rule in the studios favour, resign as a judge and have a very high paying job at the studio.
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Re: Re: Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It?
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Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It? -- But policing is EVERYONE's responsibility.
But civilized society requires common purpose. Copyright IS the reasonable compromise. You can't have its benefits without a little care take for other people's property.
This only became a case when anti=copyright EFF lawyers meddled in.
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Re: Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It? -- But policing is EVERYONE's responsibility.
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Except the copyright owners' apparently
Wrong on two fronts. First and foremost, copyright infringement, or trespassing in his example, is not even remotely close to assault and robbery in severity, so the comparison fails on that point.
Also, he didn't say that people should ignore any trespassers on his property, rather his point was that they do not, and should not, be legally obligated to do anything, given it's his job, not theirs, to deal with trespassers.
If they want to help, that's one thing, but blaming others for failing to do his job is absurd, especially if he claimed that it was too tough for him to do it himself, as those demanding that sites like YT police all the content posted to their site for infringing content like to do, demanding that a site owner do something that they claim would be too difficult to do themselves.
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Re: Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It? -- But policing is EVERYONE's responsibility.
Actually, the typical rule in the U.S. Is that there is no general duty to rescue. If you see someone being beaten and robbed you probably can ignore it. If you get involved, hopefully it will be in a safe and useful way, rather than making things worse, but ultimately, so long as you didn't cause the situation from which the victim needs to be rescued, and you don't owe the victim a special duty of care (e.g. They're not a child that you're the parent or guardian of), you can ignore it, hell, you can watch it while having some popcorn.
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Re: Re: Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It? -- But policing is EVERYONE's responsibility.
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Re: Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It? -- But policing is EVERYONE's responsibility.
Copyright WAS the "reasonable" compromise - ftfy
You can't have its benefits ... who are you referring to, only content "ownerz" get benefits from copyright.
Copyright is not property.
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Re: Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It? -- But policing is EVERYONE's responsibility.
It's genuinely hilarious how often you try to make an argument and end up proving yourself wrong as a result, usually because you rely so heavily on terrible analogies and strawmen.
There is no legal requirement to assist someone being beaten and robbed, just as there should be no legal requirement for intermediaries to police copyright infringement. Even if we were making a moral argument (and the DMCA is not that), the case for helping out someone being beaten and robbed, even if you're just running away to get help, is a hell of a lot stronger than the one for helping out big copyright holders, who have no moral high ground to whine from.
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Re: Re: Is It Property, Or Isn’t It? -- But policing is EVERYONE's responsibility.
Sure, if someone trespasses on your property you can call the police to help out, but if the police just happen to see someone on your property they probably aren't going to do anything. How do they know that person is unauthorized? Heck, it could be your buddy coming by.
Also, the majority of people will naturally accept that being beaten and robbed is a negative thing and has a moral response. Most copyright infringement is literally as "bad" as jaywalking, and in the vast majority of cases is completely victimless. The only people who truly believe copyright infringement is wrong are those who have been convinced it's wrong by swindlers trying to pin creator's woes on someone other than themselves.
Sorry if I'm not feeling pangs of sympathy for imaginary slights. Without modern copyright law people wouldn't even notice copyright infringement; you always notice getting beaten and robbed, regardless of the law. It's not a reasonable compromise, it's a paid-for racket that keeps rich men rich and benefits nobody but them.
First you'd have to prove some actual benefits to me for copyright before I'll buy your "compromise" is anything close to reasonable.
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Somewhere in that wall of legalisms is mention that "fair use" is complex. But was not a false takedown.
And NO, I don't care how many "dancing baby" videos are taken down. We're actually better off without floods of CRAP. Making this a literally federal case is solely due to machinations of lawyers. There was no need for it. This is the very minimum of cases, involving no loss to community or persons, NOTHING important said. It was cynically chosen by anti-copyright lawyers for sympathetic emotions evoked rather than merit.
Don't overlook that it's actually UMC has been put to expenses hiring lawyers. Lenz was out nothing except perhaps a couple minutes to remove audio from the content. And now seeking huge damages? BALONEY.
Don't forget that this could easily set the opposite precedent you want. That's why to avoid marginal cases. I bet that it will -- and after reviewing meddling EFF's place in the worthless case, fervently hope so.
Expensive content can only be made when copyright is enforced. It's therefore a fair deal to burden the populace with an instant of thought to avoid tricky questions about worthless crap right at the source.
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Careful, that sword cuts both ways
Not so fun when your content is what's getting blocked or made difficult to post, is it?
Expensive content can only be made when copyright is enforced.
Assuming for the sake of argument that's true... And?, Your problem is you're mixing 'expensive' with 'good'. Hollywood spends obscene amounts of money on movies, but that doesn't mean they're guaranteed to be good, or even decent. John Carter and The Lone Ranger spring to mind, both costing over a quarter billion each, and both dismal flops.
Who care how expensive something is, what matters is how good it is, and all the special effects or shiny packaging in the world can only do so much to make a crap creation look better. Dress it up however you want, spending insane mounts to do so, and it's still crap at it's core.
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Re: Careful, that sword cuts both ways
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Re: Careful, that sword cuts both ways
It makes me laugh how much Hollywood whine and moan that people are not going to the cinema to watch there movie(s) or buying the DVD/Blu-ray of their movie(s) stating that those people who don't are filthy thieving pirates etc. when you can put the blame on people not going to the cinema or buying the DVD/Blu-ray etc. because the movie is sh*t to the core and would be a waste of money to see the movie.
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Re: Careful, that sword cuts both ways
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Re: Careful, that sword cuts both ways
Amazingly good movie better than most of the marvel movies released over the past decade.But it is easy enough to get without paying the thieving distributors by using p2p and everyone should do so.
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Re: Re: Careful, that sword cuts both ways
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Re: Somewhere in that wall of legalisms is mention that "fair use" is complex. But was not a false takedown.
"NOTHING important said."
awesome!
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Re: Somewhere in that wall of legalisms is mention that "fair use" is complex. But was not a false takedown.
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Re: Re: Somewhere in that wall of legalisms is mention that "fair use" is complex. But was not a false takedown.
True, but do you expect basic humanity from corporate suits who think of everything in terms of money? They'd sell their own mothers if they could see a potential profit in it.
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Re: Somewhere in that wall of legalisms is mention that "fair use" is complex. But was not a false takedown.
So, you assume that Ms. Lenz should be sufficiently expert in the subject of what is or is not an infringement of copyright; and that she be sufficiently technically expert with the right software that she can re-format the video without the sound; and that she even have the right software in the first place?
When, and where is she going to develop this expertise?
And, please show me expert opinion to the effect that the music in the background is not incidental to the video, which is part of the good faith requirement.
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Re: Somewhere in that wall of legalisms is mention that "fair use" is complex. But was not a false takedown.
Other people have covered the rest of your rant, but: surely a company that size already employs its own lawyers and wouldn't have to hire them specially for this case.
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Re: Somewhere in that wall of legalisms is mention that "fair use" is complex. But was not a false takedown.
No, you're wrong.
First, copyright policy encourages the creation of works, without any regard to their artistic value, which as a subjective matter of taste is something that the government is incompetent to judge anyway. Note that the video in this case is just as copyrighted as the Prince song, no more, no less.
Second, as noted, artistic value is subjective. You might think it's crap, but others might think that the underlying Prince song is crap and this video is a masterpiece. Your opinion carries no weight.
Third, even if you were right, the mere existence of works of no artistic value causes no harm to society. We can simply ignore them, just as we ignore many other works, according to our own tastes and preferences.
Fourth, copyright doesn't exist to protect works which were expensive to create. This is evident in the equal degree of protection granted to all copyrightable works. Copyright simply exists to promote the progress of science by encouraging the creation and publication of more works than would be created and published otherwise, while limiting the public as little as possible for a short a time as possible. There's nothing in there, or in the copyright clause, or in the Copyright Act, about "expensive content" or "worthless crap."
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Re: Somewhere in that wall of legalisms is mention that "fair use" is complex. But was not a false takedown.
Crap is based on opinion and therefore impossible to define. For example, I think your comment is crap, so would you be OK if a wayward copycensor nuke fell on it?
"involving no loss to community or persons"
Well, the uploader's freedom to post her dancing baby video was lost there.
"And now seeking huge damages? BALONEY."
$150,000 per song downloaded. 'Nuff said.
"It's therefore a fair deal to burden the populace with an instant of thought to avoid tricky questions about worthless crap right at the source."
WARNING: STUPID DETECTED. I don't consider it 'fair' to assume that the populace consists of copyright lawyers and/or people with the innate magical gift to determine fair use from infringement just by looking at the content. And again, crap is relative.
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How to do copyright law - NZ Style
(1) Copyright in a work is not infringed by—
(a )the incidental copying of the work in an artistic work, a sound recording, a film, or a communication work; or
(b) the issue to the public of copies of an artistic work, the playing of a sound recording, the showing of a film, or the communication of a work to the public, in which a copyright work has been incidentally copied; or
(c) the issue to the public of copies of a sound recording, film, or communication work to which paragraph (a) or (b) applies.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a musical work, words spoken or sung with music, or so much of a sound recording or communication work as includes a musical work or those words, must not be regarded as incidentally copied in another work if the musical work or the words, sound recording, or communication work is deliberately copied.
Section 41: substituted, on 31 October 2008, by section 21 of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 (2008 No 27).
Well at least until the TPP comes and wipes it out.
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Taking one step further back
Instead of legally testing the user-generated home movie, wouldn't their investors prefer their financial effort redirected towards protecting, say, a feasible candidate for loss of revenue.
Or is this cynical law suit perhap their sneaky advert for The Artist Formerly Who-cares.
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If the law reference was not proactivately referencing the fair use section of the copyright act. What law is it referencing.
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