‘Lisztomania’ Suit Tests Fair Use

An Australian record label and a Harvard law professor are engaged in a legal tussle over the professor’s use of Phoenix‘s song “Lisztomania” during a lecture.

Photo: Louis Tucker / Memphis In May

Beale Street Music Festival, Tom Lee Park, Memphis, Tenn.

Lawrence Lessig, a founder of Creative Commons and a “free use” advocate, used videos featuring the song during a 2010 lecture that he recorded and later posted to YouTube.

That irked Liberation Music, which claimed to own the license for the song and threatened to sue Lessig for violating the label’s rights. Lessig recently took preemptive action in a Massachusetts court, filing a suit that accuses Liberation of abusing copyright law to limit his free speech and protected use of the song under the fair-use doctrine, according to the Boston Globe.

He’s teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation for the suit (Lessig is a former EFF board member) and Daniel Nazer, an attorney for the organization, told the paper they hope the case will send a message about copyright law in the digital age.

“Excessive copyright enforcement can suppress free speech,” Nazer said. “All the copyright holder has to do is send a quick email [to YouTube], and they can get things taken off the Internet, whether it’s fair use or not.”