Lenz. v. Universal Music Group

This order from the US District Court for Northern California rejects Universal Music Group’s request to dismiss the lawsuit against the music company by Stephanie Lenz. Months after posting a clip of her son dancing to a Prince song to YouTube, Universal asked the video host to remove the clip, claiming she was infringing their copyright of the song “Let’s Go Crazy.” Following the procedure under the DMCA, Lenz told YouTube that her video was legal, and it was restored – Universal did not pursue legal action against Lenz since her use was clearly fair. However, in conjunction with the EFF, Lenz sued Universal for acting in bad faith, and asked for compensation covering her legal costs. She alleged that Universal specifically did not “belie[ve] that [Lenz] actually infringed a copyright,” and that its takedown request was entirely improper. This order covers the most recent development, with Judge Jeremy Fogel refusing to dismiss the lawsuit as Universal wanted, and declaring that copyright holders must take fair use into account before issuing DMCA takedown notices. Universal had argued that it was not incumbent on copyright holders to consider a potential fair use defense, and that doing so would be costly and disruptive. The Judge rejected this argument, and while admitting that he did not believe it to be likely that Lenz could eventually win the lawsuit against Universal, still allowed it to progress nonetheless.
Fogel’s decision is going to play a big role in my paper, as this order sets precedent for other courts to look fair use at when determining takedown-abuse cases. The decision is unique in that it helps define what a copyright holder must do to clear the “materially misrepresents” hurdle set in Section 512, adding consideration of fair use. Previously, it could have been possible for copyright holders to more recklessly send takedown notices to service providers, and make a credible claim that they were not active in misrepresenting since a limited (and undefined) amount of care was given to the process. With the addition of fair use, the burden is higher, which I will argue is beneficial to the takedown process. Despite the judge’s assurances that adding a fair use component will not add a tremendous amount of complexity to the process, it will also be worth mentioning how many people disagree with this claim, believing that the four factor test for determining fair use is inherently nebulous and difficult to use.

Lenz v. Universal Music

In early 2007, Stephanie Lenz recorded a video of her children dancing to the song “Let’s Go Crazy” recorded by Prince. She uploaded the recording to Youtube and, roughly three months later, received a takedown notice from Youtube notifying her that the video infringed on a copyright held by Universal Music. Lenz issued a complaint stating that the video was actually a Fair Use of Prince’s music and should therefore be put back onto Youtube. She said her video was not taken down based “on a particular characteristic of the video or any good-faith belief that it actually infringed a copyright,” but rather Prince’s personal desire to control all of his work. The plaintiffs in this case accept that the video includes elements that are under copyright by Prince and Universal. Their argument is whether or not the Digital Millennium Copyright Act “requires a copyright owner to consider the fair use doctrine in formulating a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.” The judge in this case noted that no other court case has actually determined the merits of whether the phrase quoted above pertains to Fair Use. The judge determined that, despite no previous ruling, Fair Use is not an infringement of copyright and is a lawful use of the copyright. The court thus ordered that a brief review of potentially infringing material must be completed by content owners prior to sending a Takedown notice, to ensure whether it is a Fair Use.

This decision strengthens my paper’s argument that many potentially infringing videos on Youtube may, in fact, be examples of Fair Use. While only a small percentage of songs available on file sharing websites could be constituted as Fair Use due to the skill required to sufficiently transform songs, many videos on Youtube may be shielded from unwarranted takedown notices because of this ruling, due to the fact that transforming and mashing video clips is much easier than transforming songs. The complaint that a large portion of Youtube’s videos are copyright infringing and that Youtube encourages such videos is thus proven false. In reality, many of these “infringing” videos actually make up the user-generated content that embodies the spirit of Youtube: a community of Web 2.0 users producing unique and individual content to share with others. Had this decision not been made, unchecked takedown notices could have harmed time-sensitive and important videos that were actually examples of Fair Use. While Universal argued that this checking for Fair Use is an unnecessary waste of time, the Judge was quick to point out that the Copyright Act of 1976 established 4 simple, quick factors for determining Fair Use. This decision upholds the hard work of individuals who successfully transform copyrighted material, and it prevents large corporations and recording artists from overreaching their bounds by unfairly removing Fair Use videos. Youtube’s legitimacy as a website made up of a majority of unique material is thus upheld.

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Lenz. v. Universal Music Group

Lenz v. Universal Music