Webwork - 10:41 pm on Aug 21, 2008 (gmt 0)

Ummm . . I'm not sure Syzygy. I think the waters will continue to be tested. Cases that follow this, involving videos with better production values, (the audio in this video sucks and doesn't really add much "to the entertainment") might represent a closer "fair use" call than we all are prepared to say today when the issue of fair use is examined from the perspective of YouTube, as a (some day?) profit making entertainment channel, rebroadcasting the copyrighted work of artists, as soundtracks, enhancing the entertainment value of otherwise mind-numbing videos.

Footnote: Ack! In the interest of justice (:P) I finally looked at the video. I knew it would be dreck (what home movie isn't?) and besides noticing how uninteresting and unoriginal a work the video is, and how "unfeatured" the music soundtrack is, I noticed the following: Views: 600,172. Sigh.

What a nothing of a video. All I can say is good job, EFF, in choosing this as your test case to challenge DMCABots as legitimate arbiters of what ought or ought not to be subject to take down notices.

Of course, any further damage to the public perception of more legitimate efforts to enforce intellectual property rights is just incidental and really not your fault, right EFF? :P

But, really, in the final analysis - 600,172 views of this video? I know the lawsuit probably explains 99.5% of the views, but really, if this is what people are watching on YouTube we are doomed. If this video passes for entertainment then the entertainment industry is doomed, too.

[edited by: Webwork at 11:30 pm (utc) on Aug. 21, 2008]