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Eye on <i>Lenz</i> In Light of NFL Takedown Notices

By Scott Graham
November 02, 2015

In October, after receiving takedown requests from the National Football League and two college athletic conferences citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. '512 (1998), Twitter suspended two sports news feeds that feature short clips of football highlights. Although a firestorm of online protest led Twitter to restore @Deadspin in about an hour, and Deadspin editor-in-chief Tim Marchman crowed that “the Internet kind of told the NFL and Twitter to eat shit,” the disputed video footage remained blocked when Marchman spoke.

@SBNationGIF, another feed that's heavy on sports-related Vines and GIFs, was restored later in the week, with much of its content replaced by a frowny face and the message, “Oops, we couldn't find it.”

The disruptions come one month after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in an unrelated case that copyright holders must take fair use into account before sending takedown notices to Internet service providers under the DMCA. Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 13-16106 (Ninth Cir. Sept. 14, 2015). But while that ruling has been hailed as a win for Internet users, it also includes some fine print that could strengthen the hand of copyright holders ' leaving lawyers for copyright holders and Internet publishers searching for bright lines.

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