Can a mother post a videotape of her toddler dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” on YouTube without violating the fair use doctrine of copyright law? The “dancing baby” case has attracted some amused attention and outrage in copyright circles in recent months. Now a federal judge has declined Universal Music’s bid to “go crazy” with copyright law, and has instead stood up for the fair use doctrine. Watch the 29-second YouTube clip here — and then decide whether federal courts should be wasting their time on this kind of stuff.
Still image from YouTube video by Stephanie Lenz.
With the high-handed arrogance to which copyright holders have become accustomed, Universal Music sent a cease-and-desist letter to a Pennsylvania mother who had uploaded a 29-second video of her toddler dancing to a garbled Prince song playing in the background. In a rare turn of events, the mother, Stephanie Lenz, sued Universal for sending her a meritless “takedown notice.” She said the notice harmed her fair use and free speech rights, and she wants damages in return.
“I was really surprised and angry when I learned my video was removed, Lenz told the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which helped her bring her lawsuit. “Universal should not be using legal threats to try to prevent people from sharing home videos of their kids with family and friends.” EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry said that “Universal’s takedown notice doesn’t even pass the laugh test. Copyright holders should be held accountable when they undermine non-infringing, fair uses like this video.”
Universal ultimately declined to argue that the video wasn’t fair use. But the company did argue that its mere assertion of a copyright violation should be sufficient justification for sending a takedown notice. Universal did not want to have to make a “fact-intensive inquiry” before sending out a notice, presumably because that would be too costly and time-consuming. And besides, Universal implied, it knows what is a copyright infringement. (Or in this case, Prince himself, who by one news report was directly involved in instigating the takedown notice in the first place.)
In other words, Universal Music wants to place the burden on individuals to vindicate their fair use rights when confronted with large corporations with armies of lawyers making unilateral assertions. Talk about ‘let’s go crazy’!
Federal judge Jeremy Fogel implicitly rejected this scenario and insisted that companies are perfectly capable of making fair-use determinations before they send out takedown notices. The judge’s ruling is a cold slap in the face for corporate copyright holders, who routinely threaten individuals with groundless cease-and-desist letters and act as if fair use is a legal triviality. By refusing to dismiss the case – and by squarely affirming the importance of citizens’ fair use rights – Judge Fogel delivers a welcome message that copyrights are not sweeping and absolute. The public’s fair use rights matter. Further evidence that fair use may be getting its groove back.