YouTube dancing girl video found legal



    After five years (!) Of litigation, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal found Universal Music had violated DMCA by posting a YouTube request to remove a 30-second video of a girl named Stephanie Lenz dancing in the kitchen with Prince music . The court ruled that Universal Music did not take into account the principle of "fair use" (fair use).

    It is quite surprising that the amateur video from 2007 became the subject of such a lengthy trial, especially since there is almost no way to parse background music there. During the legal lawsuit, Little Stephanie went to school and probably learned to read court documents on her own case.

    But this lawsuit was important. The key question was whether Universal Music should have considered the “fair use” principle before submitting a request to remove the video.

    Paragraph 512 (f) of the DMCA Law states that the sender of a DMCA content removal request may be liable for misrepresentations for the removal of content, including the cost of attorney fees. But historically this paragraph of the law has not been applied. Mainly due to a previous court verdict in the Lenz case in favor of Universal Music.

    Now the court of appeal has corrected the decision of the lower court, so paragraph 512 (f) should again be taken into account by copyright holders who carry out automatic “fan mailings” with thousands of deletion links.

    True, the decision of the court of appeal was made with the proviso that automated dispatch of claims in and of themselves does not violate the DMCA. But if the principle of fair use is ignored, then the copyright holder will have to compensate for the costs.

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation welcomed the important victory in Lenz v. Universal.

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