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15 May 2017Copyright

WIPR survey: SCOTUS shouldn’t hear ‘Dancing baby’ dispute

The US Supreme Court should deny the petition in the ‘Dancing baby’ copyright clash, according to WIPR readers.

Last week, WIPR reported that the US acting solicitor general had urged the court to deny the petition.

The Supreme Court had asked the government to weigh in on the dispute, which centres on a video of a child dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” that was uploaded to YouTube.

Universal had sent YouTube a take-down notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) responded by suing Universal on behalf of the uploader.

The case found its way to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that copyright owners must consider whether allegedly infringing content has been used fairly before requesting it be taken down from websites.

It added that as long as a copyright owner has a good-faith belief that it will prevail against a fair use claim, that is sufficient for filing a request.

The EFF filed a writ of certiorari at the Supreme Court in August last year.

Responding to a survey question on whether the court should deny the petition, 80% said yes.

Do we really need to have the position even more complicated by a Supreme Court decision which will then be fastened on by commentators and players alike as underpinning any number of possibly irreconcilable positions?” one reader questioned.

Another reader, who believed that the court should hear the clash, said it’s important that only content that is actually infringing should be taken down from the internet or where there is a reasonable belief that there is infringement.

“The Supreme Court should ensure that this is the case,” they added.

For this week’s survey, we ask: The Defend Trade Secrets Act turned one year old last week. Has it been a success?

Join us for a  FREE webinar - The Halo effect: walking the wilfulness tightrope - on May 16

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More on this story

Copyright
8 May 2017   The US acting solicitor general has urged the Supreme Court to deny the petition in the ‘Dancing baby’ copyright case.
Copyright
1 November 2016   The US Supreme Court has asked the government to weigh in on the long-running saga of the ‘Dancing baby’ copyright dispute.