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In what could be an upset to the media companies use of automated DMCA takedowns the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that copyright holders must consider fair use before demanding companies such as YouTube remove potentially infringing content and can be liable for damages if they do not.
The three-judge panel on the court determined Stephanie Lenz, who posted a YouTube video of her child dancing to a Prince song in 2007, could proceed with her lawsuit seeking damages from Universal Music Corp., which pressed YouTube to remove the video under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). "We hold that the statute requires copyright holders to consider fair use before sending a takedown notification, and that failure to do so raises a triable issue as to whether the copyright holder formed a subjective good faith belief that the use was not authorized by law," according to the majority opinion.
It's not completely clear cut and dried however, as the court found that "the implementation of computer algorithms appears to be a valid and good faith middle ground for processing a plethora of content while still meeting the DMCA's requirements to somehow consider fair use." It speculated about a model in which a company sets up a computer program to send automatic takedown notices for content it identifies as nearly identical to copyrighted work, while a backup process uses humans to manually review other content that the computer program identified with less certainty.
While an appeal is probably inevitable, could this possibly be some light at the end of the tunnel for some of the overreaching and abusive use of the DMCA to take down non-infringing and fair use content?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Freeman on Wednesday September 16 2015, @04:39PM
The problem doesn't lie with the corporations who are making the textbooks. The problem lies with the Teacher who Selected a $200 textbook when a $50 or less textbook would have worked just as well. Certain disciplines could get away with Not using a textbook and / or using an Open Textbook. http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ [umn.edu]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday September 16 2015, @06:44PM
The problem doesn't lie with the corporations who are making the textbooks.
The problem doesn't lie with any one person or group. But these corporations definitely have a hand in this, since they support the very draconian copyright laws that prevent educators from copying their materials and using them at affordable prices. They also try very hard and even resort to bribery to force the use of their overpriced books. Of course, teachers and schools who put up with this may also be a part of the problem.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Wednesday September 16 2015, @08:18PM
There is definitely some collusion and/or stupidity going on by teachers/admin, however teachers need to use educational materials. So, do you risk a lawsuit by copying the 10% of a book you need, or just tell students to buy the whole book? Do you spend hundreds of hours you don't have on writing your own material, proof-reading, supplying solution manuals?
The issue IS with the industry and its obvious motivation to get institutions to funnel as much money towards them as possible. Bribery, kickbacks, etc. and the universities don't have to care because the students are paying, and public education admin doesn't care because they have a publicly funded budget FOR the books. Bleh.
~Tilting at windmills~