Monday, August 08, 2022

Post: Misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

This blog post, Coming to You Soon from Beijing: Misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
is from January 2022. This entire post is worth reading and this text might lead you to do just that.

A user’s posting of inspiring moments from the broadcast of a sporting event is a fair use under the four factors set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 107 of the Copyright Act. (1) A user’s post is noncommercial and transformative; while the broadcaster is broadcasting the event to document the event itself, the user is reposting an image or a short clip to express her response to the event, e.g., admiration of the athlete’s accomplishment. (2) The broadcast is nonfiction coverage of a live event, which favors fair use. (3) The clips are only a short segment of a much longer event, and (4) as such do not harm the market for the broadcast of the entire event.

Copyright holders may use automated methods to find and notify a user of copyright infringement, but that does not mean that infringement occurred. Understand fair use for yourself and then be willing to use it!

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