Sony Music Issues Takedown On Copyright Lecture About Music Copyrights By Harvard Law Professor | Techdirt

"Oh, the irony. First pointed out by Mathias Schindler, it appears that a copyright lecture about music copyright done by famed copyright expert and Harvard Law professor William Fisher has been taken down due to a copyright claim by Sony Music.  Fisher is well-known in copyright circles and has long advocated for a major reform to copyright to effectively spread a compulsive license to other uses, effectively legalizing file sharing, but with systems in place to still have artists paid. He's detailed versions of this proposal in his book,Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment. That said, this takedown appears to have nothing to do with that whatsoever.   The lecture itself appears to be a part of his online course, CopyrightX, which is available under aCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Thankfully, on the CopyrightX website, there are downloadable versions of the lectures, so I was able to download and watch the full lecture to see what the takedown was about. If you want to follow along at home, the lecture is the third one in section 3 ... However, towards the very end of the lecture, Fisher does play a few sound recording clips to demonstrate a point around cover songs and compulsory licenses (along with his personal opinions on the quality of Stevie Ray Vaughn v. Jimi Hendrix). The clips played are all versions of the Jimi Hendrix classic song Little Wing. You've heard it. In the lecture, Fisher plays approximately the first 45 seconds of the song, from 17:44 in his lecture to 18:31. Then, to demonstrate specific points about cover songs, he plays approximately 15 seconds of a cover by Santana and Joe Cocker. Then about 35 seconds of a version by Stevie Ray Vaughn, and finally about 40 seconds of a version by The Corrs. By my count, a little over 2 minutes of the entire 24-minute video are music clips.   Let's be clear here: this is unquestionably fair use ..."