News media have started to pick up on the lawsuit filed in August by Lawrence Lessig, which challenges takedown notice practices by Liberation Music under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the “DMCA”) in relation to Lessig's lecture series later posted on YouTube, which featured third party content creators and the song "Lisztomania" by the French band Phoenix, whose copyrights Liberation apparently claims it enforces.
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly posted an editorial this week ,calling the lawsuit an "opportunity to clarify [the] law." From the paper:
Currently, the correct standard is unclear: While copyright holders must have a reasonable and articulable basis for sending a takedown notice, there’s a lot of uncertainty over what constitutes sufficient cause.
Now, because Lessig and Tuteur have stepped up, the end result could be welcome clarity where there has been little guidance.
Lessig amended his complaint earlier this week. The new complaint adds an entire section making allegations about Liberation's takedown practices generally, over and above the specific instance at issue in the case (as well as some small semantic changes throughout). Liberation has yet to respond, and no one has yet appeared on its behalf.
