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Remember back when Rupert Murdoch acted like fair use was a myth that would be "barred by the courts" when challenged? Yeah, that's been coming back to bite Murdoch. Earlier this year, we noted that a former advisor to Michael Jackson was suing News Corp. over Fox News' decision to air interview footage without a license, and the complaint highlighted Murdoch's anti-fair use statement. Of course, when it came time to defend itself (guess what?) News Corp. lawyers relied heavily on fair use.
Looks like that's happening again. News Corp. has been sued yet again for copyright infringement, this time for airing a video (without licensing the clip) of Brad Pitt having trouble driving a motorcycle. Instead, Fox News folks simply downloaded it from TMZ, a property owned by AOL. Wait a second... so with Rupert Murdoch running all over the place claiming that Google News linking to his content is "theft," yet Fox News has no problem downloading a video from a competing media organization and using it? Fascinating.
And, of course, the folks suing waste little time before bringing up Murdoch's comments on "fair use" in the complaint itself (bottom of page 2):
I actually agree with Fox News that this should absolutely be considered fair use, but it's astoundingly hypocritical of Murdoch to mock fair use, claim that courts won't recognize it, accuse others of "theft" for merely linking to your content... and then step up and claim fair use when you downloaded an entire video off another site and used it on your TV station.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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