Behind the Anshe Chung DMCA complaint

Outraged by the video and the collection of images used in the news reports–which spread quickly across the Internet–Ailin Graef’s husband and business partner, Guntram Graef, fired off a Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaint to YouTube, which pulled the video, citing a “copyright infringement” violation.
In the DMCA complaint, the Graefs argued that because Second Life users own the content they create, the video and the photographs used Anshe Chung’s image without permission.
But while YouTube acted quickly, legal experts argued that use of the images in the media was protected by fair use doctrine, and that attempts to make the video and photos go away were tantamount to a chill on media freedoms. The DMCA, signed into law in 1998, is intended to extend copyright protection to material published on the Internet.
Late last week, YouTube recast its rationale for deleting the offending video, calling it a “terms of service violation,” even as new copies of the video began to populate the service, as well as Google Video. YouTube did not elaborate.
Behind the Anshe Chung DMCA complaint | Newsmakers | CNET News.com

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