Lord Finesse Learning How The Streisand Effect Works: Tons Of People Re-Upload Dan Bull's Video

from the calling-more-attention-to-it... dept

We've covered how Lord Finesse and his lawyers appear to be using copyright to stifle criticism of Finesse's lawsuit against Mac Miller, and how Dan Bull was speaking out against that kind of censorship. It's been quite clear that Finesse's main reason for issuing the takedown was to stifle the criticism, since tons of videos using the same beat remain online -- including Mac Miller's.

But, of course, as we've learned over the years, when you try to stifle free speech online, a funny thing happens. It seems that plenty of people aren't at all happy about Lord Finesse's attempt to silence Dan Bull, and they're re-uploading copies of the video by the dozen. At the time I'm writing this, there are well over 100 other copies of the video uploaded. Here's just a sampling of what the search results look like:
Might have been wiser to have just kept quiet about the damn thing. By taking it down, Finesse has now called a hell of a lot more attention to Dan Bull's rather important criticism of his actions.

Filed Under: dan bull, fair dealing, fair use, lord finesse, mac miller, parody, streisand effect

Dan Bull: Censored By Copyright For Protesting Being Censored By Copyright

from the more-copyright-as-censorship dept

On Friday, we wrote about the ridiculous situation in which Lord Finesse issued a takedown for Dan Bull's video that was critical of Finesse's lawsuit against Mac Miller. Over the weekend, Dan decided to do a "documentary" style video about the situation, entitled CENSORED BY COPYRIGHT. It's eight minutes, and worth watching in its entirety:
It does a good job laying out both the legal (fair use, fair dealing) and moral (culture, the nature of hip-hop building on itself) reasons for why Dan believes he's in the right. But it also highlights the chilling effects at play. Dan can put in a counterclaim, but if he does so he risks (1) a lawsuit from Finesse and (2) losing his entire YouTube channel, with which he's spent years building a massive following... and (1) is not a particularly far-fetched threat, given that Finesse did, in fact, just sue Mac Miller for $10 million. Clearly, he's got lawyers and he's not afraid to use them.

In the meantime, Lord Finesse posted something on his own Facebook account, implying that Dan Bull has no fair use claim, because he has ads on his YouTube channel. Of course, that's not quite how fair use works. While the fact that Dan might make some money could play into whether or not it's fair use, the fact that you monetize your work does not automatically mean you lose fair use protections. As Dan notes in his own comment, news organizations -- magazines, newspaper, TV news and radio -- are all for-profit ventures, and are probably the biggest users of fair use. What Dan was doing here was providing commentary on the news in the same way that a news program or magazine might.

So while Finesse claims that "there's a difference" between presenting an opinion and making money on ads, that's hard to square with reality, where lots of people make money while also presenting their opinions.

Filed Under: criticism, dan bull, fair dealing, fair use, lord finesse, mac miller, parody, uk

Lord Finesse's Lawyers Now Using Copyright To Stifle Dan Bull's Criticism Of His Lawsuit Against Mac Miller

from the copyright-as-censorship dept

Yesterday we wrote about rapper Lord Finesse suing fellow rapper Mac Miller because Miller released a free song that used the same beat that Finesse used (which was itself based on a sample from jazz musician Oscar Peterson). Miller, of course, has become a phenom, being the first indie artist to top the charts with a new release in over a decade. The song in question, Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza, wasn't on Miller's album, but was just released for free online, and uses the same beat from Finesse's 90's era hit Hip 2 Da Game. And now Finesse is suing for $10 million.

In our post on the subject, we pointed to a song that Dan Bull put together, using the same beat, but as commentary/parody of this legal fight. The song highlights how hip-hop has a long history of building on the works of others, and does a nice job laying out the history with Oscar Peterson's sample being used first. And... this morning Dan Bull logged into his YouTube account to discover that Finesse's lawyers had issued a takedown on his song. This is a clear abuse of copyright law to stifle criticism of his lawsuit. First of all, it's not at all difficult to find a lot of other songs that use the same beat with people rapping their own lyrics over them... and they all have been left up (and have been up for a while). Here are just a couple examples -- both of which have been up for over a year. And, oh yeah, even Mac Miller's own version is still up on YouTube. So basically, either Finesse and his lawyers just so happened to take down the one video that is critical of the lawsuit... or they're using copyright to stifle criticism and free speech.

Furthermore, it seems like there's as pretty strong argument for fair use (or fair dealing in the UK) for Dan's video. It's clearly using the music to comment on the lawsuit and the fact that it involves this beat. It's difficult to discuss the nature of the beat without actually being able to use the beat, as Dan did. In many ways this seems like a classic case of what fair use/fair dealing was designed for. The beat is integral to the criticism and commentary that is the whole point of the song, and is used out of necessity.

Of course, even more amusing is that the entire point of Bull's song was to tell Finesse just how bad legal action like his lawsuit against Miller really looks -- and instead of getting the message, it appears that Finesse and his lawyers want to look even worse, using the same sort of "copyright as censorship" effort that made Bull call them out in the first place.

Filed Under: criticism, dan bull, fair dealing, fair use, hip-hop, lord finesse, mac miller, parody