Warner issues take down DMCA notice to Larry Lessig’s presentation
This is just plainly, fucked up.
They issued a take down notice for this video. Two things are happening here:
1. An stupid clerk issued the DMCA notice, without really understanding what he’s doing.
2. A legal team of Warner Music specifically decided to go against Lessig, and destroy fair use via legal precedence.
Of course, Larry Lessig‘s videos are fair use. Even if he makes money from his presentations and books, Lessig’s videos are more educational & journalistic (which are fair use points), than all Warner works put together. More over, Warner Bros will never be able to prove that they lost money on the examples Lessig shows on his presentations.
Not only that, but what’s really interesting here, is that Lessig’s part of the presentation that supposedly infringes are the parts where fair usage examples are shown. So basically, the “infringing” parts, are simply in there as EXAMPLES of fair usage. So, Warner Music will not only have to fight Lessig’s presentation, but they will have to DOUBLE-prove non-fair usage on the included remixed videos too. Good luck with that.
Which makes me believe that point number 1 above is true: some idiotic clerk, issued a take down notice, and now Warner Music will have to battle the bad PR. They won’t be able to battle this case in a court. If they go ahead, then there are some sinister reasons behind the whole thing, where they would use Lessig to “destroy all free thinkers out there”. A political move, in other words. If they win the double-fair-usage point I made above, then they will have destroyed fair use in the US.