Vimeo Sued By Capitol Records Over Lip Dubs
I roared with a belly laugh when I read this headline in bed earlier today. Could Capitol Records truly be this misguided? Do they not realize that if you to were sort Internet brands by those most emblematic of creativity — not piracy — that Vimeo would line up at the top? Lip-dubbing is harmless and perfectly fun, and ultimately will define the aesthetic of an Internet generation. Other than for some petty legal jockeying towards a greater strategy can I imagine why this record company would sink such a potentially valuable lifeline — Lip-Dubbing and Vimeo create tremendous relevance and usefulness for their music catalog!
If anything better underlines my point it’s an email I received from Sean Nelson, the frontman of the band Harvey Danger, whose song Flagpole Sitta we’ve now infamously lip-dubbed:
That Flagpole Sitta video made me incredibly happy, just when I thought there was NOTHING that could make me listen to that song again. A thousand thank you’s.Capitol, you’re a bunch of goof-balls. This lawsuit is the tactical equivalent to pooping on someone’s birthday cake.
I, for one, am willing to boycott Capitol’s catalog unless they reconsider, and I implore other labels to pivot and spur conversations with Vimeo in order to determine a simple process to give people access to copyrighted music for personal video that is satisfactory for all.
I hate to be a grinch, but from here it looks like lip dubs on Vimeo are illegal. They may benefit the record labels or the artists or both, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are illegal.
There’s an excellent argument to be made that lip dubs on Vimeo ultimately benefit the artist, and maybe that they ultimately benefit the label (that part’s a little bit trickier). But if that’s the case it’s in Vimeo’s best interest — and is, in fact, Vimeo’s obligation — to arrange deals with the labels in order to make lip dubs possible.
As far as I can tell from reading the complaint, it’s factually accurate and very likely to be successful. Vimeo should settle.
And, incidentally, I wish the world didn’t work this way. But I think that people should play by the rules (while working really hard to change them).
