Serious YouTube test of copyright law

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

A woman who posted a home video on YouTube of her 13-month-old son dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" squared off Friday against entertainment giant Universal Music Corp. in a federal court case that tests copyright law.

The issue in Stephanie Lenz's lawsuit against Universal is whether the owner of the rights to a creative work that's being used without permission can order the Web host to remove it without first considering whether the infringement was actually a legal fair use - a small or innocuous replication that couldn't affect the market for the original work.

Lenz's lawyers, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, say her 29-second video, with fuzzy camerawork and unclear sound, was such an obvious noncommercial fair use that Universal should have to reimburse her for the costs of taking it out of circulation for more than a month last year.

The company's lawyers say the 1998 federal law that authorized copyright-holders to issue takedown orders didn't require any such inquiry - in fact, they argue, there's no such thing as an obvious fair use.

No court has ever addressed the issue, said U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, who is presiding over the case.