Record Label Picks Copyright Fight With The Wrong Guy
npr.org
npr.org
For those wondering who Liberation Music is, it's a spin-off label of the Mushroom Music Group which was co-founded by one of the biggest and one of the most powerful names in Australian music, Michael Gudinski. Essentially it's a smaller label with the backing of a larger one.
Get the popcorn ready, this is going to be one interesting fight if anything comes of it.
It's not clear to me, however, just how big an award can come from one instance of improper takedown? I mean, I don't expect the label to have to sign fewer artists or anything.
> A plaintiff suing over a wrongful Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice can only recover for damages that were proximately caused by the notice... The Court determined that attorney fees are collectable but explicitly forbid the attorney fees if the work was done on a pro bono basis.
So it seems like Lessig would be pushing for a change in precedent, because as current case law seems to stand (IANAL), even if he won legal costs and damages it would be a drop in the bucket to the record industry, and no reason to change their practices of sending automated notices. I hope he succeeds though!
That's why that lady got a couple million dollars from McDonald's for a too hot coffee a couple years back - not because it caused her so much harm. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restauran... )
1) The lady didn't ask for that much; the judge awarded it, after much shenanigans by McDonalds';
2) In the end, it wasn't a couple million, it was reduced by the judge to under $500k.
The case is more complex than most people want to believe.
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-April-2004/story_le...
tl;dr: He has been a professor of law at both Stanford and Harvard. He's not just "some guy who thinks he's going to stick it to the man".
He is director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University and the Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Previously, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of the Center for Internet and Society. Lessig is a founding board member of Creative Commons and the founder of Rootstrikers, and is on the board of MapLight.[2] He is on the advisory boards of the Democracy Café,[3] Sunlight Foundation[4] and Americans Elect.[5] He is a former board member of the Free Software Foundation, Software Freedom Law Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[6]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtE-xnPKj28
To see some of the global creativity this video sparked, this video has a pretty comprehensive list of 'brat pack mashups':
And finally, Lawrence Lessig at TEDxNYED in 2010 discussing this case:
Anyone interested in how copyright vs. fair use works should watch documentary called RiP: A Remix Manifesto (http://ripremix.com/). It covers all the major issues related to copyrights, fair use etc. I highly recommend it. In fact, Lawrence Lessig is part of that documentary.
Suppose Lessig wins the case. The greatest impact to record labels I could foresee is they would have to be more careful about their takedown requests.
It sounds like a favorable outcome for Lessig isn't going to turn the world of youtube copyright upside down and automatically grant an umbrella to legitimize works in a legal grey area. They're still going to receive takedown requests, and they're still going to have no recourse.
Wow, not even the top legal scholars in a field, pursuing a case in their own field, are willing to represent themselves. Why is that? I'd think that Lessig would feel safe representing himself in this case.
Lawrenfreude n. Schadenfreude when the underdog moonwalks over The Man.
That's actually the point of Lessig's lawsuit - that there neds to be a human in the loop when these notices are issued, because deciding if something is likely fair use or not isn't something you can do mechanically (at least with current technology).