A New Lenz: Google Weighs In On Fair Use

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act creates a liability "safe harbor" for online service providers that post content that may be protected by copyright. It facilitates the takedown of an infringing work by providing a relatively simple "notice and takedown" procedure. However, the DMCA has been criticized for making it more difficult for individual creators to combat an overreaching copyright holder when the alleged infringement qualifies as fair use. After receiving a sufficient takedown notice, the service provider must take down the work, and the burden is on the creator to defend its fair use. This ends the issue in many cases where the creator has insufficient resources to provide a counter-notice or defend a lawsuit from an aggressive copyright holder.Last week Google announced that it will pay legal fees for some of its video-posting users to fight DMCA claims. In his post on YouTube's public policy blog, Fred von Lohmann wrote that YouTube will be offering