Comments on: YouTube: What’s Fair Use?

By: Tina Kubala

Tina Kubala — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:33:00 +0000

Companies trying so hard to enforce copyrights on cases like this miss the point of YouTube and social media. For one thing, your intent is not to make money off their property. Your father’s creativity only reinforces the song. It is more likely to inspire a purchase then prevent one.

Imagine if your video had gone viral on a grand scale. People who never had been into the band would have been exposed in what amounts to free advertising. How foolish to give all that up over some abstract right.

By: Ellie

Ellie — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:40:00 +0000

It’s so stupid. Now I can’t watch some of my favorite videos because of stupid copyright laws. It makes me wanna punch a baby (not really)

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:33:00 +0000

I’ve posted some YouTube videos of my movie review show, and YouTube automatically disabled the videos because I use clips. However, when I filled out the Fair Use appeal form, they re-enabled it within hours.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:31:00 +0000

You can argue with it. You can file a counternotice. And IMO you should.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:30:00 +0000

That’s part of what my lawsuit against UMG seeks to do: clarify fair use in the context of today’s society. We did get one ruling our our favor so far. The judge said that copyright holders have to consider fair use before sending a DMCA notice to YouTube.

Here’s the EFF page about it: http://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal

I didn’t expect to talk about it on Mental Floss. I’ve hit the big time now!

They’re a good source of information.

By: goose

goose — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:04:00 +0000

Its not the fact that it been published for long time when the work was first put into the market defines that basis. The work when first released remains published or an unpublished work.

By: azz100c

azz100c — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:17:00 +0000

I have been dealing with this for several months. My “Classic Hits By Microsoft Songsmith” series has thrown the Content ID system for a real loop. I found I could generally avoid any problems by using filters to distort the video just enough to not catch the Content ID system (the audio doesn’t come close to matching, since it’s only the vocal track I use — the music itself comes from Microsoft Songsmith).

Any claims that HAVE come up, I’ve written brief arguments as to the fair use appeals and I’ve won every one of them.

As for Michelle, when you purchase a music recording, you don’t own the RECORDING. You own a license to use that recording for your private use. Once you start applying that work to your own creations, you’re violating the terms of that license.

By: Ruthie

Ruthie — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:55:00 +0000

Fair use or not fair use- what does it matter in this case? YouTube has the right to set policy for material posted on its web site. If they decide to pull material, they can pull material. How can you argue against that? Put it up on your own site. Start a YouTube alternative site. OurTube. MyTube.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:31:00 +0000

OK – I have no knowledge of copywrite law, so this article is very interesting to me.

Here is the question that I have: if I go to a store and buy a copywrited CD, do I not now own the rights to the music on that individual CD? I can play it in my home, my car, my office, as loud as I want – within the publics ears (who will then HEAR it). If I choose to use the music on said paid for CD (they have gotten the money for the right to use the CD as I choose) for a piece of my own personal artistic expression, am I not entitled to the “fair use” of the CD that I paid for?

Forgive me for my ignorance. I don’t see the point of forcibly taking down a Video on a public site.

Wait – I do – even bad publicity is good publicity.

By: Jen - The Alien Spouse

Jen - The Alien Spouse — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:14:00 +0000

I’m just glad I don’t work in archive footage sales any more, particularly because UK copyright law doesn’t have such a thing as public domain. Therefore every scrap of film belongs to someone, which can be an absolute nightmare to try and trace.

Anyway…

Fair dealing in UK copyright tends to revolve around how much of an original recording you are using, but also if you can easily trace the rights holder. Generally speaking if you know who to contact you should try to, but of course the difficulty with that is that large corporations don’t want to be bothered licensing to amateur film makers because there is no money to be made there and it would take up a lot of time.

Essentially the law is about 50 to 100 years behind the technology and the culture.