We had just been discussing a lawsuit in South Korea that appeared to be quite similar to the infamous Lenz case, in the US. If you don't recall, that case involved Universal Music issuing a DMCA takedown after a mother posted a 29-second video of her toddler dancing to the radio where a Prince song was playing. While Universal Music did not contest the counternotice of the woman, the woman (with the help of the EFF) sued Universal, claiming that it violated the DMCA in issuing a takedown on a video that was obviously fair use.

Universal claimed that since fair use is "just a defense" under the law, and not (technically) a "right," that it had no obligation to consider fair use before issuing a takedown. Thankfully, the judge disagreed. That wasn't everything, though, as this case has dragged on and on for years since then, as the EFF and Lenz sought to make Universal actually liable for damages for filing a bogus DMCA takedown. Earlier this year, the court ruled that damages were available, but quite limited.

The latest part of the case is that both sides have filed for summary judgment, with Lenz arguing that the takedown violated the law, since Universal did not believe in good faith that the video was infringing (as required by the law). Universal's motion, on the other hand, makes the argument that the 29-second video is not an obvious case of fair use. It still argues that there's no requirement to check for fair use first, but says that even if it's supposed to, this video was not obviously fair use.

Just the fact that we need to have a big legal fight over whether or not the video is fair use is really sad. Any copyright law that doesn't immediately consider that kind of use fair use is broken. In the meantime, I'm curious if someone at Universal Music could enlighten us to what would be considered fair use in its mind?