Universal Uses DMCA To Get Bad Lip Reading Parody Taken Down 298
Joren writes "Bad Lip Reading is an independent producer known for anonymously parodying music and political videos by redubbing them with his humorous attempts at lip-reading, such as Everybody Poops (Black Eyed Peas) and Gang Fight (Rebecca Black). According to an interview in Rolling Stone, he creates entirely new music from scratch consisting of his bad lip readings, and then sets them to the original video, often altering the video for humorous effect and always posting a link to the original off which it is based. Although his efforts have won the respect of parody targets Michael Bublé and Michelle Bachman, not everyone has been pleased. Two days ago, Universal Music Group succeeded in getting his parody Dirty Spaceman taken down from YouTube, and despite BLR's efforts to appeal, in his words, 'UMG essentially said "We don't care if you think it's fair use, we want it down."' And YouTube killed it. So does this meet the definition of parody as a form of fair use? And if so, what recourse if any is available for artists who are caught in this situation?"
Re:It's only fair use if you go to court... (Score:4, Informative)
Or if you're responding to a DMCA notice.
As I understand it, if someone complains about your work under the DMCA, the hosting provider is supposed to forward the complaint to you, and immediately pull your work. If you respond to the DMCA asserting you have the rights to the work (for whatever reason, including fair use), the host is supposed to put it back up, and let you and the complainant duke it out in court.
Of course, as a private entity, Google can pull down whatever it likes from its services - there's no obligation for them to host any of your material.
Their youtube site is up (Score:3, Informative)
I just checked it. http://www.youtube.com/user/BadLipReading [youtube.com]
It's really funny but not as funny as Day Job Orchestra.
Re:It's only fair use if you go to court... (Score:5, Informative)
"We... settled out of court. The way the system appeared to work to me was... Lady Justice had the scales, and you piled cash on the scales. And the one that piled the most cash on the scales and hired the most experts and the ones most willing to tell the biggest lies... that was the winner. That's... that seems to be how our justice system functions now. It's terrible. It's terrible. How can a farmer defend himself against a multinational corporation like Monsanto?" -Troy Roush, Vice President of the American Corn Growers Association, commenting on how Monsanto uses legal action to bully farmers into settling when they are accused of "stealing" Monsanto's IP (genetically modified seeds). From "Food Inc."
Re:Things you can do. (Score:4, Informative)
Fourth amendment?
In this case, no, the fourth amendment doesn't hold, it's data sitting on Google's servers that's being yanked down by Google, not the Government.
Re:The Video is not Down (Score:5, Informative)
It seems another youtube user who had downloaded a copy reposted it, and the original author added it to his playlist. See: http://www.facebook.com/badlipreading/posts/296640680348638 [facebook.com]
Re:It's only fair use if you go to court... (Score:2, Informative)
You believe this to be true because...
A lawyer who routinely does court-appointed work will have represented hundreds or thousands of defendants in front of each judge in that courthouse. The lawyer will know what strategies work or don't, the judge's pet peeves, and what sort of sentence the judge prefers to impose. For anything routine, a public defender will have more relevant experience and will be able to get an issue more quickly and effectively than anyone else. There is no punitive impact from using a public defender, but the opposite could very well be true. If you hire someone the judge doesn't like or who missteps during court, you have a problem. And, if the judge assumes you are more able to pay a fine, you're looking at the real possibility of a stiffer penalty.
Re:It's only fair use if you go to court... (Score:4, Informative)