The Lip Dub Lawsuit Scares Me
Yesterday one of my favorite Internet video-centric blogs, NewTeeVee, alerted me to the fact that my video upload site of choice, Vimeo, is being sued by Capitol Records for copyright infringement over one of its most popular user memes, the "lip dub", a video of one or more persons lip synching to a (usually well-known) copyrighted song track.
From NewTeeVee:
Now, here's the thing. It would be easy to dismiss Capitol Records as the bad guys who don't have senses of humor and just want to make trouble for creative folks. And I've actually made one of these lip dubs during work hours while drinking alcohol at at previous place of employment, so I'm obviously a fan of the process (and a shameless ham, which is neither here nor there, but let's be honest, I don't completely suck at lip dubs).
But I also completely understand why Vimeo's being sued, and I'm not sure they've got a real strong counter argument for Capitol Records. The day a bunch of co-workers and I made the lip dub I referenced above, we sort of put it together on the fly on a Friday afternoon and showed off the final product at an all-hands meeting afterward. And even though everybody laughed and clapped, my boss was a little freaked because it was obviously shot in the company studio and we obviously didn't have permission from INXS to use their song. And it kind of became this dramatic issue where he really didn't want our lip dub video getting posted anywhere associated with the company, even though we'd planned to use it as a fun promotional piece and get as many people to watch as possible (I hadn't run any of it by him beforehand). And of course I guffawed at his paranoia and considered him humorless and argued that he was just trying to keep the creative folks from having fun, but deep down I knew he was right. So I posted the video to my personal account on Vimeo and agreed to accept any repercussions individually. And there weren't any, and I never really thought about it again.
Except that now there are repercussions, at least for Vimeo. And I'm not quite sure what to think about being part of a pretty big group of people who may not fall under the "parody" defense. So....what's your opinion?
From NewTeeVee:
The complaint states that Vimeo “induces and encourages its users to upload…audiovisual works,” which it then disseminates virally throughout the Internet. According to Capitol Records, the company’s staff actively participates in “making, selecting, commenting on, and at times choosing to delete” audiovisual works, including those featuring its own copyrighted recordings.
Now, here's the thing. It would be easy to dismiss Capitol Records as the bad guys who don't have senses of humor and just want to make trouble for creative folks. And I've actually made one of these lip dubs during work hours while drinking alcohol at at previous place of employment, so I'm obviously a fan of the process (and a shameless ham, which is neither here nor there, but let's be honest, I don't completely suck at lip dubs).
But I also completely understand why Vimeo's being sued, and I'm not sure they've got a real strong counter argument for Capitol Records. The day a bunch of co-workers and I made the lip dub I referenced above, we sort of put it together on the fly on a Friday afternoon and showed off the final product at an all-hands meeting afterward. And even though everybody laughed and clapped, my boss was a little freaked because it was obviously shot in the company studio and we obviously didn't have permission from INXS to use their song. And it kind of became this dramatic issue where he really didn't want our lip dub video getting posted anywhere associated with the company, even though we'd planned to use it as a fun promotional piece and get as many people to watch as possible (I hadn't run any of it by him beforehand). And of course I guffawed at his paranoia and considered him humorless and argued that he was just trying to keep the creative folks from having fun, but deep down I knew he was right. So I posted the video to my personal account on Vimeo and agreed to accept any repercussions individually. And there weren't any, and I never really thought about it again.
Except that now there are repercussions, at least for Vimeo. And I'm not quite sure what to think about being part of a pretty big group of people who may not fall under the "parody" defense. So....what's your opinion?
