Lawrence Lessig Wins Fair Use Case 89
just_another_sean writes "An Australian record label that threatened to sue one of the world's most famous copyright attorneys for infringement has reached a settlement with him. The settlement includes an admission that Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law School professor, had the right to use a song by the band Phoenix. From the article: 'In a statement, Liberation Music admitted Lessig's use of the song was protected by fair use — a legal doctrine that allows copyrighted material to be used for education, satire and a few other exceptions. Liberation Music says it will also pay Lessig for the harm it caused. The amount is confidential under the terms of the agreement, but it will be dedicated to supporting work by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil rights group, to work on causes that were important to Lessig's friend Aaron Swartz, a technologist and activist who committed suicide last year.'"
Re:what happened here (Score:5, Funny)
According to this [npr.org], Lessig was talking about a remix in one of this lectures, a music matcher downloaded his lecture, found it to contain the song 'owned' by this label, and the label sent out an automated harassment lawsuit threat to Larry.
You have to wonder, at what point did they realise they were taking a copyright case against one of the world's most famous legal authorities on copyright!