Warner Music Forces Lessig Presentation Offline 196
An anonymous reader writes "Larry Lessig, known (hopefully) to everyone around here as a defender of all things having to do with consumer rights and fair use rights when it comes to copyright, is now on the receiving end of a DMCA takedown notice from Warner Music, who apparently claimed that one of Lessig's famous presentations violated on their copyright. Lessig has said that he's absolutely planning on fighting this, and has asked someone to send Warner Music a copy of US copyright law that deals with 'fair use.'"
Reader daemonburrito notes that the (rehosted) "video remains available at the time of this submission."
Per Mr. Lessig's request, copy and paste: (Score:5, Informative)
WMG contact form: http://www.wmg.com/contact [wmg.com]
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Sect. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A [17 USCS Sects. 106, 106A], the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Re:Whooooh! They picked the WRONG guy for this one (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, and he's already had his ass handed to him court at least once.
Difference between theory and practice and all.
Pick Your Battles Wisely (Score:5, Informative)
Larry: Non-free Audio Fair Use for music constitutes 10% or 30 seconds of a song (which ever is shorter) and it must be in a low enough quality (didn't investigate the audio on this video to find out if it satisfied Ogg quality of 0 rule). For the rest of the 15 minutes I saw you looked fine but this stuck out at me. Pick your battles wisely and adhere to this rule next time.
How Lessig Lost the Big One (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whooooh! They picked the WRONG guy for this one (Score:5, Informative)
http://news.cnet.com/Supreme-Court-nixes-copyright-challenge/2100-1023_3-980792.html [cnet.com]
Lessig argued that repeated extensions were unconstitutional because they ran afoul of the Constitution's "limited times" requirement and also conflicted with the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech.
But just moments into Lessig's opening remarks, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor interrupted and noted Congress had repeatedly extended the duration on copyrights, with no intervention before by the Supreme Court. What, O'Connor asked, is different about this case?
Lessig then continued to ramble on and the supremes continued to roll their eyes and wonder what the hell he was on about. He later said that, in retrospect, he should have shut up at that point and addressed the point made.
Re:Pick Your Battles Wisely (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, IANAL.
However,
From my own analsys of the codified fair use doctrine, the proportion of the copyrighted work that is used for a fair use purpose is not explicitly stated excepting that it must not be in it's entierety, and should therefor satisfy as long as the proportion is not "In it's entierety"- Since the copyrighted work is a clip from the original muppet show, and the muppet show episode being longer than 2:29 minutes, I fail to see the reason why this is not fair use.
Additionally,
There is not a qualifier for quality in the codified body concerning fair use, thus the quality argument is insubstantiated as far as I can tell.
Re:Pick Your Battles Wisely (Score:3, Informative)
Ugh, very well. They're referred to as "portion limits" and the safe range has always been 10%-ish. Check out what Stanford advises it's students [stanford.edu] (and this is in academia, mind you):
up to 10% or 1,000 words, whichever is less, of a copyrighted text work. For example, an entire poem of less than 250 words may be used, but no more than three poems by one poet, or five poems by different poets from any anthology.
up to 10%, but in no event more than 30 seconds, of the music and lyrics from an individual musical work.
up to 10% or three minutes, whichever is less, of a copyrighted motion media work (for example, an animation, video or film image).
a photograph or illustration may be used in its entirety but no more than five images by an artist or photographer may be reproduced. When using photographs and illustrations from a published collective work, no more than 10% or 15 images, whichever is less. Or,
up to 10% or 2,500 fields or cell entries, whichever is less, from a copyrighted database or data table may be reproduced. A field entry is defined as a specific item of information, such as a name or Social Security number in a record of a database file. A cell entry is defined as the intersection where a row and a column meet on a spreadsheet.
I'm sorry but what Mr. Lessig did from 11:00-11:49 was in my mind a ballsy use of a song ... about 35% of that song was used. That's a big warning bell to me.
Good luck to him, I hope there aren't other infractions later on. Wikipedia uses the 10% rule, that's how I know about it. I'm not a lawyer and I'll punch you if you call me one but I fear he's going to run into trouble on this one.
Best of luck to you Larry.
Re:Pick Your Battles Wisely (Score:5, Informative)
PROPOSED Academic guidelines from Stanford University are not the Law of this land. Good thing you're not a lawyer. If you were your clients would be suing you for malpractice.
I still have my soul, IANAL, etc...
Re:Lessig is a moderate (Score:2, Informative)
This is fundamental misthinking about copyright. Copyright (in the United States) doesn't exist to protect authors, it exists to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts." (U.S. Const., Art. I, Sec. 8)
This is fundamental misleading about copyright. You replaced the comma with something to make it seem like that line stopped without mentioning author's rights: "by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
It is about their right, and their right is compatible with the best interest of the nation, hence the preamble.
Re:How Lessig Lost the Big One (Score:3, Informative)
Re:look harder...dig deeper...find FACTS... (Score:3, Informative)
written in 1968 for an Italian Porn movie and has been in several movies since then.
My lady and I recently started renting the occasional muppet show DVD from netfux and occasionally there are some real gems. From memory, Rolf: Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. There's something kind of irresistablish about 'em. We grin and bear it 'cause the nights are long... let's hope that something better comes along! And of course, the classic Muppet rendition of Lydia the Tattooed Lady was mostly lost on me as a child...
that does not ensure that Warner doesn't own it now.
The idea that they can own something that has become an indelible part of my childhood memories disgusts me.
Re:How Lessig Lost the Big One (Score:5, Informative)
The commerce clause and the copyright clause are two of the enumerated powers. The cases you cite deal with the commerce clause. So, I don't see how.
Re:Whooooh! They picked the WRONG guy for this one (Score:5, Informative)
Justices have for decades attempted to derail arguments with tangents, and they do it to both sides. Liberal justices will demand justification from attorneys representing a liberal side just as conservative justices will do with those representing a conservative point, and all question^W grill the representatives on the points while bringing up seemingly unrelated points, interrupting them at their pleasure. It takes nerves of steel to stand up in front of the Supreme Court, because they do know what they're talking about and they absolutely will cut off the unprepared at the knees, and continue moving up until there's nothing left, and woe unto the attorney who gets combative with the justices.
Remember that the justices have already read a great deal of case information by the time that oral debates have started, so they are often already leaning in one direction or another. However, there's also a great deal of work that goes on afterward as the justices debate the case internally, one of the reasons that the opinions take so long to come out in most cases. This is mostly a secret process, but there have been indications from some justices that a few debates have escalated to serious arguments with logic sometimes being tossed out the window. Traditions have developed over time to deal with those circumstances and allow the justices to at least end each term with civility, if not going home each night or weekend with some friendliness.
Re:Pick Your Battles Wisely (Score:2, Informative)
At some point they did.
The Muppet Show: Music, Mayhem, and More! - The 25th Anniversary Collection
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006IZP8
Track Listings ...
1. The Muppet Show Theme - featuring The Muppets
2. Mahna Mahna/Lullaby Of Birdland - featuring Mahna Mahna & The Two Snowths
3. There's A New Sound - featuring Scooter
Re:Pick Your Battles Wisely (Score:3, Informative)
1) The Muppet Show is owned by Disney at this point, not Warner Music (see note later)
2) As other commenters have pointed out, there is no bright line test for what constitutes fair use (like 10% or 30 seconds)
3) You're an idiot to lecture Larry Lessig on the boundaries of fair use. He helped write the copyright law and knows as much about it as pretty well anyone in the country.
Beyond that, I'm still trying to figure out what Warner Music objected to. I've gotten through the portion of the video with all the remix examples, and I haven't seen anything which Warner has its hands in. Here's content I've seen:
Danger Mouse - The Grey Album (Jay-Z's The Black Album (Universal) + The Beatles' The White Album (EMI))
DJ Mystik - Inspector Gadget Techno remix (no idea what record label. Maybe it was one of Warner's imprints, but I can't find any information about the release at all)
The Muppets - Mah Na Mah Na (Disney)
Endless Love (Universal)
DJ Unk - 2 Step (Universal)
Soldja Boy (Universal)
Girl Talk (IllegalArt)
will.i.am's Yes We Can (not released by a label)
And that's all I have heard. So, the DJ Mystik one is the one which is even possible, and frankly that seems a little unlikely. Especially since of the listed songs, it was one of the shorter clips.
Now, if it was Time Warner in general, they own CNN and could be laying claim to some of the video clips which are used in the mash-ups. But for Warner records in particular (which is what Lessig says), then unless they released that Inspector Gadget remix (which I doubt), then I don't see how they have a dog in the fight.
All that said, my going theory is that the song they are laying claim to is Mah Na Mah Na. This song has been released by Warner at least once: specifically by Rhino on "The Muppet Show: Music, Mayhem and More (2002)". I am certain that Disney only licensed that release and didn't sell Warner the copyright. I suspect that they stuck that song into their database because they have released it on CD without checking whether or not they actually own the rights to the original audio recording.
Being that they aren't even the actual holder of the copyright and they have claimed to be under penalty of perjury, they're going to lose this one really badly.
That's my best guess, anyway.
Re:How Lessig Lost the Big One (Score:3, Informative)