Distributing copies of music to thousands of people when you don't own it was illegal before the internet existed so this isn't a you tube thing.

Had she recorded this on VHS and sold it at flea markets in the mid 80's it still would have been illegal and gotten her sued just as vigorously if a music company executive saw it.

The reason you hear so much about it now, and the reason more people get caught now is because it's all on the internet and it's easier to find. The stuff you taped as a kid and showed to your friends on the vcr, simply won't fly in today's world because of the size of the audience. The size is nearly the entire world. When you were a kid it was you and 3 buddies on the living room floor. Maybe your parents taped it and showed their friends. No one cared because they didn't see it.

If she had kept the file in her living room dvd player to show to family and friends it would have been fair use.

Posting it on you tube with copyrighted work in the sound of the video created the problem. Distributing someone else's recorded work to anyone with a computer is not fair use, *no matter what medium or prominence in the medium*. That is a very important point. The law says you can't do it without permission from the owner of the copyrighted recorded work. Internet or not, it doesn't matter. There can't even be 2 seconds of the work in yours, without permission from the owner.

By the same logic you use in the editorial, I should be allowed to produce a professional video of professional dancers dancing and lip syncing to this song and put it on you tube as a polished make believe music video with a high quality sound. The dancers are my friends and we're just doing it to be cute.

Would that be fair use? Where do *you* draw the line? Sound quality? Video quality?

All of this being said, I don't believe this person was trying to profit, and won't cut into prince's profits by distributing a cute video of a kid, preventing which is what the *spirit* of copyright law is about, but where *do* you draw the line?

Hopefully they educate her about copyright law instead of prosecuting her. Informed citizens make much better citizens than broke ones and the actual damage she caused is negligible to zip.

Universal would do more damage to itself than she did if they sued her.

-NPD

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