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Fair Use Upheld. Imagine That.

By Pamela Jones et al.

I thought you would like to see a recently decided US case where fair use was upheld as a defense. I collected some materials to explain fair use in an overview the other day, but here's a case that explains the elements that courts look at, in a real live case, and it particularly makes clear what transformative use means.

Here are the facts of the case. Some folks made a movie, a documentary, and they got sued for using 15 seconds of the John Lennon song "Imagine" without permission. The case is Lennon v. Premise Media. That's Lennon as in Yoko Ono Lennon, joined by John's two sons and EMI Records. EMI sued in state court, and the Lennons in federal, both for copyright infringement and they threw in some trademark infringement claims too. I think that was mainly insurance, though. Lawyers do that. And there was a dispute as to who had the right to the copyrights.

The plaintiffs in both cases had asked the courts to issue a preliminary injunction to shut down the movie, which had already been released, and pull back previously released copies off the market, so the 15-second clip could be cut out. And they wanted the usual bucket of money. But it wasn't just about money; it was also about control, about having a say in how a work is used. The district court denied their motion.

Full post as published by Groklaw on July 02, 2008 (boomark / email).