The Monkey Selfie Case Continues, But The Dancing Baby One Does Not

from the never-ending-copyright-litigation dept

Thankfully this is not a post about the Monkey Selfie case, which should have ended by now but has not. Instead it's about Lenz v. Universal, the Dancing Baby case, which shouldn't have come to an end yet, but has. This week the EFF announced that the case has been settled.

The problem though isn't that it the case has been settled. It had been remanded for trial, which would have been a long, expensive slog to not accomplish what the case really needed to accomplish: put teeth back into the Section 512(f) remedy that the DMCA is supposed to afford to deter illegitimate takedown demands. The problem is that the opportunity to provide that benefit was extinguished when the US Supreme Court denied cert and refused to review the Ninth Circuit's interpretation of that provision. So we'll be stuck with this precedent until another case can prompt another look by the court and the serious issue of censorship-via-takedown notice can finally get the judicial attention it deserves.

Maybe it will even be a case where a monkey has taken a video of himself dancing along to music, because the rights of monkeys have so far been a lot more successful in attracting en banc attention from the Ninth Circuit than the speech rights of people. And maybe it won't even take 10 years of litigation (that's 32 in monkey years) to find out.

Filed Under: 512f, copyright, dancing baby, fair use, lenz, monkey selfie, public domain, stefanie lenz
Companies: eff