Andre Yoskowitz
19 Jul 2008 15:30
For the Pennsylvania mother Stephanie Lenz, who has stood up to Universal Music Group after a YouTube video of her son dancing to a Prince song was taken down citing a DMCA violation, the case is gaining more and more attention and Lenz hopes her case at least brings attention to the users who have been bullied over the years by the labels and rich pop stars.
"I figure I have nothing to lose," Lenz said. "The music companies are just going to keep doing this to people. I think it's my responsibility to stand up to them and say, 'That's enough.' "
Lenz' lawsuit claims that Universal and Prince are "abusing" the DMCA and is asking for monetary damages. She is also asking that the court specifically state that she did not violate Universal's copyrights with the YouTube video.
The DMCA takedown notice in question is just one of hundreds of thousands that the labels and studios send out each year to video sharing sites which forces the material to be temporarily removed unless the user decides to fight the decision in court.
Backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Lenz did take the request the court and maintains that the video was a harmless use of a once popular song and that the takedown notice is blatant abuse of the DMCA.
The case was almost dismissed but the EFF persuaded the judge to keep it alive while Lenz revised the complaint. The EFF says "that companies such as Universal have an obligation to investigate and evaluate a video such as Lenz's before firing off the threatening letters."
Lenz and the EFF believe the video is in "fair use" of the song but Universal believes the opposite and also feels it would "be unfair to artists and media companies to force them to undertake lengthy inquiries before asserting copyright violations."
"The copyright owner is arguing that this is infringing; Lenz says it is fair use," added Mark Lemley, director of Stanford University's Law, Science and Technology clinic. "There are no cases directly on this question of user-generated content that incorporates songs as background. Lenz will be the first."
For now, the video is back up on YouTube but Lenz is not satisfied.
"Somebody needs to tell these music companies they can't just throw out these (takedown letters) and accuse people of violating federal crimes," she added. "I didn't like feeling like I'd done something wrong, even though I knew I hadn't. It made me panic."