I can understand your frustrations Katrina. In answer to your question, no, what you described does not fall under “fair use.” If you haven’t already done so, check out my blog post about “How to legally use music in your videos.” You can access it at http://bit.ly/musicinfilm.

Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows it's risky to post public videos with copyrighted music.

And if you have a high-profile, potentially viral video, it's like putting a sign on your back that says "Kick me!"

This is all that Jeffery Harrell’s video means to you, and you should have known it already.

That sounds like something you definitely should bring up with With Etiquette. You shouldn’t have t have a song you legally licenses flagged like that.

I found that very interesting as well. One thing about youtube & vimeo is that I am not sure how you avoid getting flagged when using licensed music? All of my wedding films that I posted on YT use music from TSM or WithEttiquette, I still get the flag that I have copyrighted music on it. it doesn’t pull it, just adds the link to buy the song.. which I am Ok with because I want to make sure the musicians get supported. i did submit a dispute ticket just to see what happened, i told them I purchased the rights and have the reciept if they want to see it. no response. like i said.. doesn’t bother me just not sure how they will know if something is licensed or now.

Dan

This was a case where the person who uploaded the video didn’t own it. The recorded off TV or some other way, then uploaded as their own content. That’s why it was pulled. YouTube is filled with videos like that. Sometimes the copyright holders request the removal (as in this case). Sometimes they allow ads on it and make money from it. In any case, I saw that video and thought it was very funny. What I found interesting is that a show like Conan, which is geared towards the average Joe, would make a spoof video about something that really only professional editors would get.

I actually don’t think Robin’s video constitutes a legal parody as it relates to Fair Use. The video itself is funny, and it does make some similar allusions to the song’s original music video. But the Robin video in and of itself it’s not really a parody of the song. My understanding is that fair use comes into play if the object of your parody is that thing whose copyrights you would normally be infringing. It’s much easier to show when parodying a person, video or film. Much harder with music. I’m no attorney, so I can’t say for 100% sure I’m correct. That’s just my interpretation.

Thanks Ron. Also, just to clarify, I’m not talking about David Robin’s video – it is easily considered a parody video and as such is fair use. But it does skate that line – anything short of comical and it’s not going to be as easy to write it off as parody.