YouTube Star Leads Fight Against Copyright Troll
December 24, 2007 by Mike Abundo
Filed under Computers
This is viral vigilantism at its finest. After a hit YouTube video gets taken down by one whiny photographer ignoring fair use, Kevin Nalts encourages video creators to show that n00b how teh Intarwebs work. The results are awesome.
Let’s see Lane Hartwell go insane sending DMCA takedown notices for all those videos with her pictures in them — which, by the way, clearly fall under fair use as commentary. It’s 09F9 all over again — except this time people are smart enough to blame the troll, not the host.
Being personally involved with the cosplay community, I harbor an intensely personal grudge against whiny photographers who arrogantly think themselves above fair use. That’s why I roundly applaud Nalts on this clever vigilante campaign. Go YouTubers! Fuck Lane Hartwell and all her copyright-trolling ilk!
Careful! The use of the photo does NOT “clearly fall under fair use as commentary…” For that to be the case, the commentary would have to be ABOUT THE PHOTO… Same thing with Fair Use as parody… For it to constitute fair use, the parody MUST BE ABOUT THE ACTUAL WORK BEING REPRODUCED… Yes, I know, it’s a gray area. Yes, it’s subjective. Yes, it’s a mountain-out-of-a-molehill situation. But still, the law’s the law, whether one agrees with it or not… For more info, read this carefully:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
Personally, if I were Lane Hartwell, I positively WOULD pursue as many violations as I could. She’s already retained the attorney’s services, only now, the money tree will be bearing MUCH more fruit.
omg…
thanks for that. It’s always interesting to see how narrowminded people can be.
But hey, finally she got some publicity now :p
What really galls me is that Hartwell shoots for Wired. EIC Chris Anderson is a very smart guy, and a strong advocate of free culture. He should just fire Hartwell outright. A prestigious publication like Wired should have nothing to do with a greedy ignoramus like Hartwell.
It’s nice to know that some YouTube stars really do care about using common sense and logic ^^