Video Takedown Does the Trick?
Dec 18, 2007
A well-known Bay Area band once sang a song with these lyrics: "Once in a while, you get shown the light in the strangest of places, if you look at it right."
Those words can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. In this case, it's what I thought of when I realized that a number of bloggers are up in arms about, of all things, copyright and fair use.
What's sparked the sudden outrage though isn't Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. Or even Congress' recent hearing about the proposed PRO-IP Act. Nope. This firestorm started because of YouTube's takedown of the "Here Comes Another Bubble" video.
It turns out that a popular Silicon Valley photographer named Lane Hartwell was the one who asked YouTube to remove the video last week because it included a copyrighted photo she took of ValleyWag editor Owen Thomas. Hartwell contacted the singing group who created the video and asked for payment and/or explicit credit for her photo, but she turned to YouTube when she became frustrated by the response she received.
Her actions have set off a passionate, sometimes overly heated, debate among social media regulars about what fair use is and isn't, and how user-generated content and copyrighted works can best co-exist.
In other words, the controversey over "Here Comes Another Bubble" has done what numerous press releases, Congressional hearings and policy events have yet been able to accomplish: It has Silicon Valley bloggers who usually turn the other way when the discussion turns to tech policy talking about how digital copyright affects them. Which is, in my opinion, a very good thing.
To learn more, check out Laughing Squid or this post by former EFF attorney Jason Schultz.
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