Clinton signs Digital Millennium Copyright Act

It was none other than the late, great Prince who happened to see a 30 second home video of a toddler bobbing along to a barely audible background soundtrack of his 1984 hit “Let’s Go Crazy” which led to a high-profile legal showdown involving YouTube, the Universal Music Group, and a housewife named Stephanie Lenz. This case later set the precedence to shut down sites like Napster and many others making the use of digital content on the Internet Era treacherous waters. This legislation called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on this day in 1998.

The Evidence

As one can only imagine, the DMCA bill was heavily supported by the content industries such as Hollywood along with a vast majority of artists globally during its legislative journey through the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The DMCA was written in order to strengthen the federal copyright protections against new threats posed by the Internet. However, this legislation included a “safe harbor” provision granting companies operating platforms for user-contributed content protection from liability for acts of copyright infringement by those users. It was this provision that the operators of file sharing platforms such as Napster used to defend themselves... obviously it didn't work out.

The Aftermath

The DMCA authorized copyright holders to issue “takedown” notices to individuals and/or companies believed to be infringing upon the use of a copyrighted work. The allegation in the case of the “Let’s Go Crazy” toddler came from Universal Music Group acting as Prince's publisher, and YouTube responded by removing the video along with 200 or so other videos deemed to be in violation of the law. Stephanie Lenz appealed YouTube’s takedown of her video on the basis that the barely audible Prince clip was under the long-established doctrine of Fair Use. The video was later restored when Universal failed to file a formal infringement lawsuit against Lenz within two weeks, but the legal minefield created by the DMCA has yet to be completely resolved by the courts or by Congress.

[The video used is from the original users youtube account]: Stephanie Lenz