Copyright in the Age of YouTube, ABA Journal, February 2009 Issue

Via ABA Journal: Copyright in the Age of YouTube, As user-generated sites flourish, copyright law struggles to keep up:

"“The entertainment industry wants to change the law to protect their existing business models,” he says, “rather than change their business models to adapt to new technology.”

Protectionist behavior by copyright owners is nothing new. “There’s a recurrent pattern whenever a new technology crops up,” [Jessica] Litman says. “Existing content industries insist that the new technology must play by the old copyright rules. ... The new companies say that the old rules fit your technology and business models, but they don’t fit our technology and business models. Some­times the older companies impose restrictions that try to stop the new technology, but in the end, the old and new companies reach some compromise.”

This time, however, copyright owners may need to compromise with more than just the new online businesses. Content owners may need to reach an understanding with tens of millions of U.S. Internet users.

“History tells us that unless the [copyright] rules will accommodate their interests, there will be no stability,” Litman says. “If the public does not see the rules as legitimate, they won’t obey them.”

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/copyright_in_the_age_of_youtube

Warner stops the music on YouTube, London Guardian, 12/22/08

Via London Guardian: Warner stops the music on YouTube:

"Content will be removed from the site along with recordings owned by Warner Music's record publishing business, Warner/Chappell Music, which controls the copyright to songs including Happy Birthday to You and Winter Wonderland. Warner Music's withdrawal also covers amateur clips that feature its artists or copyrighted songs - potentially widening the action to hundreds of thousands of additional postings."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/22/warner-music-youtube

Warner Music videos removed from YouTube, Los Angeles Times, 12/21/08

Via Los Angeles Times: Warner Music videos removed from YouTube:

"Warner Music Group's videos began disappearing from YouTube this weekend, the casualty of a contract impasse between the music company and the Internet's dominant video site

Negotiations broke down last week over licensing fees for Warner's music and videos, say people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

On its blog, YouTube alerted its audience to the collapse in talks, noting that professionally produced music videos and those that fans create using Warner songs would begin to disappear...

The stalled discussions suggest that Warner is dissatisfied with the revenue stream it gets from YouTube."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-warner-youtube21-2008dec21,0,6252484.story

Coldplay deny plagiarism allegations, London Guardian, 12/10/08

Via London Guardian: Coldplay deny plagiarism allegations, Chris Martin says that any similarities between Viva La Vida and Joe Satriani's If I Could Fly are 'purely coincidental'. Oh yeah? Maybe he should listen to this YouTube mash-up:

"Coldplay have responded to Joe Satriani's allegations of copyright infringement, describing the similarities between theirs and the guitarist's work "entirely coincidental".

Satriani filed his suit less than a week ago, alleging that Coldplay's Viva La Vida borrows heavily from his six-and-a-half-minute guitar noodle, If I Could Fly. The 52-year-old guitar nerd claimed credit, damages, and "any and all profits from the song.""

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/10/coldplay-deny-plagiarism-allegations

Markets Declare Truce in Copyright Wars, Google concedes that information isn't free, Wall Street Journal, 11/17/08

Wall Street Journal: Markets Declare Truce in Copyright Wars, Google concedes that information isn't free:

"This shift by Google led Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs books, to wonder if the book settlement could have lessons for other owners of content. "Google has now conceded, with a very large payment, that information is not free," Mr. Osnos wrote for the Century Foundation. "This leads to an obvious, critical question: Why aren't newspapers and news magazines demanding payment for use of their stories on Google and other search engines? Why are they not getting a significant slice of the advertising revenues generated by use of their stories via Google?"

Alas for the troubled news media industry, so much of its news is commoditized that people won't pay for it online. But as digital media mature, we'll see more redefinitions of legal concepts such as fair use. There will also be revisions of business practices regarding who gets paid what by whom. The Google settlement is a reminder that owners of intellectual property can choose to lock it away, give it away, or, most sensibly, share it in exchange for reasonable compensation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122688619008032339.html

Now for something completely different, London Guardian, 11/24/08

Via London Guardian: Now for something completely different -- Sick of losing revenue to illegally uploaded videos, the Monty Python team are among those signing up for YouTube's new ID initiative:

"For three years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them up on YouTube." So begins one of the current hottest viral videos. It stars the Monty Python team, and explains why they have decided to stop attempts to remove the illegally uploaded videos on YouTube - and have instead signed up to the site's Video ID system, which identifies rights holders' material and allows them to choose to have it either removed from the site, or have adverts attached to it...

The Pythons have decided on the second option."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/24/googlethemedia-digitalmedia

Copyright and Politics Don’t Mix - New York Times, OP-ED, 10/20/08

Copyright and Politics Don’t Mix: OP-ED by Lawrence Lessig

"It would be far better if copyright law were narrowed to those contexts in which it serves its essential creative function — encouraging innovation and ensuring that artists get paid for their work — and left alone the battles of what criticisms candidates for office, and their supporters, are allowed to make."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/opinion/21lessig.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

YouTube to McCain: You Made Your DMCA Bed, Lie in It - Wired.com, 10/15/08

YouTube to McCain: You Made Your DMCA Bed, Lie in It:

"YouTube on Tuesday rebuffed a request from John McCain's presidential campaign to examine fair-use issues more carefully before yanking campaign videos in response to DMCA takedown notices.

"Lawyers and judges constantly disagree about what does and does not constitute fair-use," YouTube's general counsel Zahavah Levine wrote in a letter Tuesday...

McCain campaign general counsel Trevor Potter argued that several of the removed ads, which had used excerpts of television footage, fall under the four-factor doctrine of fair-use, and shouldn't have been removed...

"We look forward to working with Senator (or President) McCain on ways to combat abuse of the DMCA takedown process on YouTube, including by way of example, strengthening the fair-use doctrine, so that intermediaries like us can rely on this important doctrine with a measure of business certainty.""
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/youtube-to-mcca.html

McCain/Palin to YouTube: Get real - Lessig Blog, 10/13/08

McCain/Palin to YouTube: Get real:

"The McCain/Palin campaign has written a fantastic letter to YouTube demanding that they start getting real about the response they're giving to notice and take-down demands of material that "are clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine." Here is the letter. Bravo to the campaign."
http://lessig.org/blog/2008/10/mccainpalin_to_youtube_get_rea.html

In Defense of Piracy - Wall Street Journal, 10/11/08

In Defense of Piracy:

"In early February 2007, Stephanie Lenz's 13-month-old son started dancing. Pushing a walker across her kitchen floor, Holden Lenz started moving to the distinctive beat of a song by Prince, "Let's Go Crazy." He had heard the song before. The beat had obviously stuck. So when Holden heard the song again, he did what any sensible 13-month-old would do -- he accepted Prince's invitation and went "crazy" to the beat. Holden's mom grabbed her camcorder and, for 29 seconds, captured the priceless image of Holden dancing, with the barely discernible Prince playing on a CD player somewhere in the background...

She uploaded the file to YouTube and sent her relatives and friends the link...

Sometime over the next four months, however, someone from Universal Music Group also watched Holden dance. Universal manages the copyrights of Prince. It fired off a letter to YouTube demanding that it remove the unauthorized "performance" of Prince's music. YouTube, to avoid liability itself, complied."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122367645363324303.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Judge: Copyright Owners Must Consider 'Fair Use' - PCMag.com, 8/21/08

Judge: Copyright Owners Must Consider 'Fair Use':

"A case involving the YouTube "dancing baby" video will continue after a California judge ruled that content owners must consider 'fair use' before sending Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices...

At issue is a 2007 home video Stephanie Lenz took of her young children dancing in the family's kitchen to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy." Lenz posted the 29-second video to YouTube on February 8 with the title "Let's Go Crazy #1."
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2328578,00.asp