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Crazy for Fair Use
The Ninth Circuit has held that fair use is an exception to copyright law and not a defense, in the first federal appeals court ruling on this issue. Lenz v. Universal Music, No. 13-1606 (Ninth Cir Sept. 14, 2015). The decision is the latest in the ongoing battle between plaintiff Stephanie Lenz and defendant Universal Music Corp. and affiliated companies (Universal). Starting in a rural kitchen in Pennsylvania, the case is now a landmark decision in copyright law that protects many home videographers.
Case Background
On Feb. 7, 2007, Lenz uploaded to YouTube a 29-second video showing her toddler bopping happily in her kitchen to Prince's song, “Let's Go Crazy.” Lenz entitled it “Let's Go Crazy #1.” During the video, Lenz asks her toddler: “What do you think of the music?” Universal, a music publishing company that administers the copyrights to the song, identified the video through its daily copyright review procedures and concluded that the copyrighted work was the “focus” of the video based on its duration, volume, the title of the video, and Lenz's question about the music during the video. As a result, Universal sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. '512 (1998), takedown notice to YouTube for Lenz' video. The DMCA notice included the required “good faith belief” statement, averring that Lenz's use of Prince's song was “not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.”
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