Finding a middle ground on copyright, photography edition

Last week, a very clever video made the rounds of the tech blogosphere and beyond, becoming the #1 rated video on YouTube. Here comes another bubble* by the a cappella group Richter Scales. Earlier this week, it was taken down for unspecified copyright violations.

Yesterday Wired revealed the culprit: photographer Lane Hartwell. See also her post: Please don't steal my work.

First some sympathy: producer Matt Hempey clearly should have paid attention to the license of images that he grabbed from Flickr. (The site has a very clear Creative Commons search.) His music group sells a CD, so should understand copyright. Second, even if he fudged the copyright issue (or sincerely thought it was fair use), he should have included a list of credits. That step alone may have saved the day here.

But, though she is probably correct on the legal side, Hartwell's action strikes me as a mistake. I couldn't tell which photo in the video was hers, but it probably flashed by in a few seconds and almost certainly had no influence on the video's runaway popularity. When copyright owners reach too far to enforce their rights, they will lose in the court of public opinion.

On the third hand (!): her critics also go too far. As with many legal issues, the lines aren't clear -- as is obvious when panels of judges disagree, and higher courts overrule lower ones.

I'll give the last word to "gloom" who commented on Hartwell's post:

NB, for those who knee-jerk 'parody!parody!,' the image use here doesn't really fall into 'parody' fair-use as it's not a parody of the image in question.