La RIAA mérite des baffes

En résumé : la RIAA a fait fermer un site qui héberge des vidéos faites à partir de moteurs 3D de jeux vidéo. Le genre le plus populaire étant les « clips », la RIAA considère que ces gens « pirates » les musiques utilisées en bande son. Lisez la news anglaise, je risque d’être malpoli si je continue…

RIAA shuts down machinima site: « Cory Doctorow: RPGFilms was a website that hosted tons of machinima videos made with video-game engines. One popular machinima genre is the music video, in which a machinima artist synchs action recorded from a game to a piece of popular music.

Now the Recording Industry Association of America has had RPGFlims shut down because they argue that these ‘songs files’ (not MP3s you understand, but humorous videos made by fans who in no way substitute for purchasing the songs) infringe their members’ copyrights.

Under the US fair use doctrine, a court can find a use fair if it can be shown that the use doesn’t interfere with the rightsholder’s income. I think that’s pretty clearly the case here: no one who downloads a machinima video of a bunch of Wookies getting down to ‘Surfin’ Bird’ is going to say, ‘Well, hell, now that I’ve got this, no need to buy the CD.’

The use of music in fan-films can only be beneficial to the rightsholder’s interests, and permitting that use can only be beneficial to society. Watching the RIAA commit slow, spectacular suicide by taking down the fan art that celebrates, advertises and raises awareness of its members’ products, well, it’s flabbergasting.