Industry expert blog

            I watched two podcasts from Entertainment Law.com. Episode 32 was about UMG v. VEOH and episode 43 wasabout Sony Pictures v. Faulkner. The two podcasts talked about many court case analyses, so I picked two cases, which are related to my animation business.

            In the first podcast, the attorney talked about the copyright infringement law. In 2007, The Universal Music Group (UMG) sued Veoh because users uploaded music videos from UMG to Veoh’s websites.  UMG claimed that the hosting video company should take the responsibility for every infringed video by users and be liable for the full cost of policing for infringement. From the attorney’s opinion, the lawsuit against Veoh was very important for entertainment companies forcing the courts to revise the law, DMCA safe harbors. In order to prevent the copyright infringement law on online hosting users and providers, the copyright holder has to alert the ISP to the infringing material and put aggressive copyright warnings below copyrighted videos. Moreover, the Internet is a mass market; as a result, the copyright holder has to keep their intellectual property safe. Such as having the ability to limit the public access to the materials and remove it. Furthermore, if you prosecuted a company that infringed your product, you could show the rights and the ability to control infringement that could also prevent the defendant to attack the ownership.

            In the second podcast, the attorney talked about fair use. The lawsuit is about the film distributor violating Faulkner’s copyrighted work by taking a quote from his book without permission.  Sony picture won the lawsuit because they only used a nine-word quote from a thick novel. The attorney analyzed that the copyrighted work is in printed format. However, Sony used it into a speaking part in a comedy film. So, this transmogrification in medium tips is the factor in favor of transformative.  In another hand, Sony only used nine words from a 220-page novel, the same as qualitative significance to the initiating work as a whole, and it is de minims, thus is considered fair use.

            After listening to the two podcasts, I learned more about how to safeguard my artwork by limited access, to put a warning sign on the Internet, and how to fair use digital materials such as images, music, movies, and Internet elements.