Copyright Rulling Sets Fair Use Guidelines: The New York TImes

In February 2007, Stephanie Lenz, a mother in Gallitzin, Pa., went on YouTube and uploaded a 29-second video of her toddler dancing while Prince’s song “Let’s Go Crazy” played in the background.

Prince’s publishers objected, Ms. Lenz filed a lawsuit, and for more than eight years the case has been symbolic of the clashes over copyright online.

On Monday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, cleared the way for the case to go to trial, and set a guideline that may change the way media companies police their holdings online. In its decision, the three-judge panel ruled that copyright holders must consider fair use before asking services like YouTube to remove videos that include material they control.

This is a huge ruling for copyright holders because it'll make it much more difficult to use automated software to send out DMCA takedown notices.

Copyright has also been taken to its logical extreme in recent history, granting copyright terms that, in many cases, won't expire for 150 years or more from the date of publication, well beyond the lifespan of any human. Copyright was supposed to be a compromise between the public and the rightsholder, where the public was willing to give up some of its natural right to copying and sharing in order to incentivize creativity. We've left all that in the dust now, and our copyright laws are currently based solely on scare tactics from massive media conglomerates.

Good. Prince's legal team have no concept of fair use.

love Prince, but c'mon, really...??

Dee72 said:

love Prince, but c'mon, really...??

I agree.This is a bad look for Prince