YouTube License To Steal, and Humiliate: ‘Fair Use IS a Bitch’
The New York Times may double down on blogosphere ridicule of a private company’s right to privacy and private property in the matter of law firm Nixon Peabody vs. David Lat, but ”all the news that’s fit to print” does not quite mean what it used to.
The NYT’s Michael Merced purports Lat’s unauthorized manipulation and YouTube posting of an allegedly improperly obtained copy of a Nixon Peabody commisisoned song ”has turned into a minor Internet sensation.” Minor being the operative word.
The NYT is not serving as the “newspaper of record” in the matter, however; It is setting the record, according to its POV.
Merced begins his supposedly objective “report”:
It sounds like the setup for a joke: a law firm picks a fight with a legal blogger over the leak of an internal song celebrating–well itself.
Contrary to Merced, however, a deliberate scheme to embarrass a place of business does not “sound like” a joke, because it is no laughing matter. Moreover, the NYT’s “report” that Nixon Peabody’s defense of its intellectual and privacy rights has “earned the firm of a bit of a black eye” is the subjective fruit of gossip mongering, certainly not a conclusion derived from hard facts.
Perhaps those that perpetrated the covert use and public misuse of the private property of others are more deserving of “black eye” honors. The NYT, however, happily jumps on the “blogosphere right, Peabody wrong” bandwagon, echoing a now familiar ”fair use” YouTube call to arms.
What is the “fair use” that Lat claims: The right to take a private, copyright song, infringe on its copyright by converting it into a video and publiclly humiliate its owners by uploading it to YouTube inelegantly headlined, “Someone deserves to be shot over this.”
In a YouTube license to steal and humiliate world, the copyright infringement victim, Nixon Peabody, is painted the bully and the agressors are celebrated as heroes defending America and apple pie.
What about Nixon Peabody’s rights? Exactly. What rights.
Despite Viacom’s billion dollar lawsuit aginst Google’s YouTube for massive copyright infringement, the blogosphere–and often mainstream media–continue to believe the DMCA provides a blanket insurance policy against all acts of copyright infringement at YouTube.
“Fair use,” is not the only thing that must be fair, however, the ownership interests of copyright owners must also be treated fairly.
What is the NYT to do, though, as it is in a neck and neck battle with sensationalist bloggers over page views. Can’t beat em? Source from them.
Of course, if the NYT really was still the newspaper of record, it wouldn’t headline “unauthorized enjoyment of song irks law firm.” A hard news headline could read: “Law firm fights unauthorized use of copyright property at YouTube.”
Provocative beats factual today though, for all the news that’s NOT fit to print.