Catherine Rampell reports another case of copyright overreach link here. This time a mother took a short video of her 13 month old bobbing in time with a song and put it on YouTube. Universal Music charged the song infringed its copyright and it was taken down, but now the mom is suing Universal for abusing copyright law. She makes a pretty reasonable argument to most of you who will read this--"The idea that putting a little video of your kid up on YouTube can mean you have to go to court, and maybe declare bankruptcy and lose your house, is just wrong,"

To be "fair and balanced," the article quotes Douglas Lichtman, a UCLA law professor who advises Viacom on copyright matters, "These companies are sending out 100,000 takedown notices, so of course once in a while there's going to be a fly caught in the ointment, Everyone's trying to be careful, though. They don't want the PR backlash that comes when they make a mistake." That of course is nonsense. The companies don't use any sense of what is reasonable or a significant violation. They don't want to spend the money to examine each of the violations and exercise good judgment. And most people fold, not wishing to bother pursuing the matter.

The article also suggests that another reason for takedowns is the desire to suppress criticism and cites an example among four other cases where the takedown notice was questionable. Another one involves copying a fashion design in the pattern of a fabric--extending copyright to protect fashion designs which are not patentable. Go to the article to read them.