Prince Is At the Center a Copyright Battle With Video-Sharing Site Vine

If you love the video-sharing app Vine, or those random cat videos on the Internet, pay attention.

By Jamilah King May 28, 2013

Two important things to note about Prince. First, the singer will turn 55 (yeah, you read that right) on June 7. Second: he’s at the center of a fairly recent dispute over what exactly constitutes copyright infringement in the digital age.

Here’s what happened. Last month, the singer’s record label issued a takedown notice to Twitter to remove eight Vine posts featuring footage from a recent concert. Vine, of course, is the rapidly-growing video-sharing app that’s currently available to anyone with an iPhone. The videos were eventually removed from the site, but that’s not the point. But a key question emanating from the case is this: Can you infringe on someone in six seconds? In Prince’s case, the answer is obviously yes.

Jeff John Roberts takes a pretty deep dive at Gigom into some of copyright’s more recent history, specifically how fair use battles have played a big role in the development of hip-hop.

Right now, we’re enjoying a rich new age of images — everything from Vine videos to BuzzFeed cat GIFs that are shared, recast and then shared again. If lawyers began to throw copyright grenades into this mix, these splendid strains of creativity could be quickly snuffed out.

Roberts’ look is really worth reading in its entirety.