Bad Bunny has sued a fan who uploaded videos recorded at a recent show in the US to a YouTube channel. But, the rapper's representatives insist, he has primarily gone legal in order to provide the paperwork YouTube says it needs to permanently block the offending content.
To be clear, these aren't the kind of concert clips that normally fill social feeds after a big show, they are high quality recordings of full songs. "Each of the unauthorised bootlegs", says the lawsuit, "negatively impacts the market for authorised uses of the Bad Bunny works by, among other things, luring YouTube viewers and associated advertising revenue away from authorised videos of the Bad Bunny works and the official Bad Bunny YouTube channel".
As you'd expect, Bad Bunny - real name Benito Ocasio - initially had his team get the videos taken down via YouTube's Content ID rights management system, which is a pretty standard process whenever an artist or label reckons a YouTube user has infringed their rights in a damaging way.
However, the uploader, Eric Garrone, formally objected to the takedowns instigated by Ocasio's people. Under the US copyright law that regulates these takedown processes, that means YouTube needs to get more paperwork from Ocasio or allow Garrone's videos to be reinstated.
According to Billboard, YouTube told Ocasio's team via email, “Your response must include evidence that you’ve taken legal action against the uploader to keep the content from being reinstated to YouTube. Usually, evidence would include a lawsuit against the producer which names the YouTube URLs at issue and seeks a court order to restrain the alleged infringement".
Even if Garrone could make a claim to ownership of the rights in the videos he recorded, under copyright law he'd need to get permission from the performers that feature, in this case Ocasio, to make and exploit the recording. Plus Ocasio could also block the distribution of the videos on the publishing side, as he and his publisher control the separate rights in the songs.
In fighting the takedowns, Garrone is relying on the pesky fair use defence by basically positioning his videos as news reporting. The videos were recorded, he argues, on the first date of Ocasio's North American tour, which constitutes "a newsworthy event of high public interest and significant informative scope".
He also reckons Ocasio should be grateful for the free promo, which is possibly the only justification for using copyright protected works without permission that annoys artists more than people claiming fair use.
Ocasio's lawsuit hits back at the fair use defence, insisting it doesn't apply and therefore Garrone's videos infringe the rapper's rights and should be permanently removed from YouTube. It also makes some extra claims of trademark infringement, just for good measure.