Federal Court Ruling Marks Win for Fair Use in 'Dancing Baby' Case

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www.sfgate.com...

Recording companies, motion picture studios and other copyright owners issue numerous takedown notices each day, targeting everything from home videos to campaign ads that include segments of songs or newscasts. When a copyright-holder tells a website like YouTube that one of its postings violates the holder’s exclusive rights to license the material, federal law requires that the posting be removed immediately.

But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the copyright-holder must first consider whether such a video amounts to “fair use” of the work, making it eligible to be legally posted. Fair use includes journalistic accounts and criticism, educational uses for teaching or research, and brief, private postings that don’t damage the commercial market for the work.

The law “requires copyright-holders to consider fair use before sending a takedown notification,” and those that fail to do so can be held liable for damages, said Judge Richard Tallman in the 3-0 ruling, the first on the issue by any appeals court.

I have read/heard about how current copyright law is sometimes abused by copyright holders. Many time as retaliation or to cover a bad review.

Do you think this ruling will help fair use doctrine or do little to nothing to change the way content creators are treated now by automated content filters?

It should change the way they're treated. This is crazy and she should be awarded. She was just videoing her child and that song was playing... I think you're entitled to some fair use here. no?

For those who can't view www.sfgate.com:

A music company’s demand that YouTube take down a 29-second home video of two children dancing to a song by Prince backfired Monday when a federal appeals court used the case to make it harder for copyright-holders to act against brief, non-commercial uses of their material.

I'm glad the Federal appeals court had some brains behind this decision. A 29 second video of two very young children dancing in glee to some tunes is pure innocence. The music company could have used this in such a positive way but instead acted as stingy tyrannical overseers. How did they even find the video, why were they so selfish and, really?!?!!! Way to spread the love. Bastards, glad they lost.

It should really only be a consideration if money is being made in some way. Obviously not in this case.

Does this mean any political campaign can use any song they want at rallies? It can open up the use of creative works, but something like this will probably get appealed to the Supreme Court, who may take the case or not.

a reply to: Aleister

I would be curious of how this applies to the most recent case of the group Survivor suing Kim Davis and Mike Huckabee for using the song "Eye of the Tiger" when Davis was released from prison and paraded out of the local police station. The lead singer/songwriter was mad the song was used in this manner and sued for $1.2 million in damages.

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