Rich Fiscus
30 Oct 2007 10:11
A Pennsylvania woman, with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), is taking Prince to court over his alleged involvement in a DMCA takedown request earlier this year. Although Stephanie Lenz was successful in getting the video restored to YouTube, EFF staff attorney Corinne McSherry said the purpose of the suit is "To keep them from abusing [the DMCA]."
The original takedown request was for a video Lenz posted on YouTube showing her 18 month old son dancing to a Prince song. The clip is a mere 29 seconds long, and the music is barely distinguishable in the background. After the video had been available on YouTube for a couple of months, the viral video company received a DMCA takedown notice from Universal Music Group (UMG) stating that the video was in violation of their copyright. The video was removed until the EFF helped Lenz file her suit against Prince and a counter-takedown notice with YouTube, which eventually resulted in the video being restored.
According to company sources, Prince was very involved with the original takedown notice. They say he personally contacted UMG to have them file the notice. Prince has also recently hired a firm to police the internet for anything that infringes on his intellectual property.
The suit claims that the clip is clearly fair use, and since that was clear when the takedown request was made Prince should be punished. "You'd be hard pressed to find a better example of fair use," said EFF's McSherry. "It's entirely non-commercial. It's just a little snippet. And in fact, you can barely hear the Prince song in the background. It's just what her baby happens to dance to."
Lenz has said of the incident in the past, "At first it frightened me, because I saw who had filed the takedown notice. It was Universal Music Publishing Group, and I was afraid that ... they might come after me. ... And the more afraid I got, the angrier I got. ... I was afraid that the recording industry might come after me the way they've come after other people for downloading music or file sharing. I thought even though I didn't do anything wrong that they might want to file some kind of suit against me, take my house, come after me."
"And I didn't like feeling afraid,'' she continued. "I didn't like feeling that I could get in trouble for something as simple as posting a home video for my friends and family to see."
Sources:
The Register
ABC News