Joseph Teixeira made videos critical of Inglewood’s Mayor James T. Butts Jr.
An update on that story reveals that the case was dismissed fairly rapidly.
The City of Inglewood had argued that copyright law be should have applied to the video of the City Council meetings within City Hall. The judge ruled that California law instead reveals “a strong presumption in favor of public access to public materials.”
And just in case that was not enough, the court also upheld Teixeira’s claim that his use of the meeting videos fell under Fair-Use in just about every conceivable way. Teixeira’s videos were addressing matters of public concern, using short portions of videos that were not creative in nature, which ultimately resulted in something that was not a substitute for the actual council meeting video.
A reminder to all those litigious officials out there, copyright laws are not your friend in this case.
More on the dismissed case can be found here.
Image Credit: Flickr User thomashawk, https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/5837998056/ via (CC BY-NC 2.0)