You may recall back in December that we wrote about the oddity of EMI suing Vimeo, claiming that by creating its own “lipdub” videos of people singing along to a song, it was actively encouraging (i.e., “inducing”) copyright infringement. The main example, of course, was the company’s first lipdub, which kicked off the craze, to the song Flagpole Sitta by the band Harvey Danger:
Lip Dub – Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.
To claim that this is somehow harmful to EMI is flat-out ridiculous. The song got a lot more attention because of this video (which currently has over 2.3 million views) — and almost certainly helped the band and EMI out in terms of sales. And yet, EMI says it was harmful. The Citizen Media Law Project points out that the lead singer of Harvey Danger appears to disagree in a big way, having sent Vimeo an email after that lipdub video came out:
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.
A thousand thank yous… and a lawsuit from your label.
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