Chris Brown v. Calvin Harris

When Chris Brown released his latest album in late 2010, UK/Scottish DJ Calvin Harris nearly “choked on his cornflakes” (1). Why? When he listened to one of Brown’s singles off the album, Yeah x3, he realized that it sounded mysteriously similar to one of his own songs, I’m Not Alone. However, Harris has yet to and does not plan to take any legal action against Brown.

The news of Brown’s infringement was barely a blip on the radar, especially compared to the fuss that Brown’s ex-girlfriend Rihanna has made in the copyright world. Last February, she faced controversy over her Rude Boy video, which allegedly copied a music video by Sri Lankan artist MIA (2). This February, she faces a lawsuit from photographer David LaChapelle over imagery in her S&M video that Chapelle believes is too similar to his work.

La Chapelle's images are on the left, while the suspect images from Rihanna's video are on the right.

In an interview with the Guardian, Harris explains his reason for choosing not to sue Brown, saying that he is “Happy for people to make their own mind up,” about the song and  “What good would that do?” in regards to taking legal action. In 2009, Harris struggled with his own case of copyright infringement after YouTube deleted a video of his remix Ready for the Weekend, despite it being posted by Harris himself (3.) However, LaChapelle clearly feels differently, claiming that the Rihanna video has taken the “composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colors, props, settings, decors, wardrobe and lighting” of his shots and produced them in videoform (4).

So why do some artists chose to fight to maintain their copyright and others remain stringent about use (LaChapelle is a good example because although some of the images are incredibly similar others are not)? Harris may actually be enjoying that his story has launched his career a little further into the mainstream, although a lawsuit might certainly enhance that even more. Where does inspiration cross the line and turn into actual infringement? Francis Ford Coppola notes that people often start by stealing from the masters in order to create art, but is this acceptable (5)? Where do we draw the line and how can it be ensured that the law is protecting creativity?

Sources

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Today marks the seven year anniversary of Grey Tuesday, the online community’s protest of EMI’s attempt to limit the availability of DJ DangerMouse’s The Grey Album.

The Grey Album is DangerMouse’s full-length mashup album of the a capellas from Jay-Z’s The Black Album with The Beatles’ The White Album. By early spring of 2004, The Grey Album had been name-dropped in The New Yorker, The Village Voice, and was ranked the Best Album of 2004 by Entertainment Weekly.

In order to protest EMI’s persistent legal threats, hundreds of websites hosted The Grey Album for free download for the 24 hours of Grey Tuesday.  Zero lawsuits were filed.

But why not?

The 2005 case of Bridgeport v. Dimension Films held, in no uncertain terms, that sampling is illegal.  As the Court wrote in their opinion, “Get a license or do not sample.  We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way.”  The language isn’t vague – a lawsuit should have been a slam dunk for EMI.

It probably has to do with the fact that Bridgeport ignores the prongs of Fair Use that are particularly applicable to sampling and mashups: purpose and character (transformative, noncommercial), amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole (generally not much – Bridgeport was decided based on a 5-second sample), effect on the market (negligible, maybe even positive).

Bridgeport established an inarguable bright-line test for record labels and music publishers. Why should they risk opening up a case where the court actually examines the language of the Fair Use doctrine and applies it properly to mashups and reverses the decision in Bridgeport?

(Curious about the The Grey Album? Stream it here.)

This article is about a recent lawsuit between the Association for Information Media and Equipment (AIME) and UCLA. Last March, UCLA had set up an online video service that allowed professors to upload videos and share them with students for educational purpose, but UCLA didn’t have rights to do this according to its license with AIME. UCLA recently chose to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that it has the freedom to upload the videos because it is an educational institution, and therefore “has sovereign immunity from copyright lawsuits.” Morever, UCLA makes the point that AIME does not hold the copyright to the videos that were uploaded, so that AIME has no foundation on which to claim copyright infringement.

This article brings up an interesting point to be made if UCLA ends up winning the lawsuit: can we use federal copyright law to disregard certain aspects of state contract law? Do fair use rights still apply even if UCLA signed a license agreement? Finally, this article points out the danger of this type of situation, which is that it may lead to more instances of fair use being “licensed away”.

State copyright laws did not disappear when the Copyright Act of 1976 was passed, so how do these laws now work with federal copyright law, especially when talking about fair use freedoms? Does AIME have a right to limit fair use through a license agreement, even though it is not a copyright holder whose work was infringed upon?

While copyright laws vary from country to country, most of the larger countries in the world today are facing copyright infringement issues with online downloads. In an article published earlier this month from The Observer, a London publication, it seems the people to blame for this surge of illegal downloading are the younger generations.

The article quotes a 21-year-old named Jake, who blames his need to illegally download on his impatience: “It is not about the money. It is about impatience and getting some power back.” It is also noted that in reality, many of the people who illegally download will never be punished: “Broadcasters would not enjoy seeing their name linked to a legal action against a 12-year-old who has downloaded from the wrong place. As a result, the chances of any individual being sued are tiny.”

The author of this article, Vanessa Thorpe, also asserts that “older” generations are “still happy to wait for the release of DVD box sets” of their favorite television shows, while the younger viewers are the ones who resort to illegal downloads.

Is it only younger generations that are partaking in illegal downloading? If so, what does this mean for the future once theyounger viewers are in the majority? Is it really about impatience?