Stephanie Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 5:07-cv-03783-JF (9th Cir. 2015)

(1) The Court gave some breathing space to creators of User-Generated Content (UGC) from bogus takedown notices in cases of blatant misrepresentation of fair use defences by copyright holders and held that “the statute requires copyright holders to consider fair use before sending take-down notification.”  

(2) The Court also recognised the possible applicability of section 512(f) of the DMCA that allows for the recognition of damages in case of proved bad-faith, which would occur if the copyright holder did not consider fair use or paid “lip service to the consideration of fair use by claiming it formed a good faith belief when there is evidence to the contrary.” However, the Court noted also that there’s no liability under § 512(f), “if, however, a copyright holder forms a subjective good faith belief the allegedly infringing material does not constitute fair use.”