copyright
Comedian takes down meltdown video
<p>If a comedian has a meltdown on stage &amp; I Youtube that (just the meltdown, no material), can that comedian have said video pulled for copyright reasons?</p>

<p>The person who first puts a thing into fixed form holds copyright: if you take a movie of a bird, you hold the copyright to that movie. If the subject of the movie is a human, it is the same. There are some limitations that are outside of copyright, having to do with the right of personality, but that would not be applicable in this context. You might be in breech of contract for having filmed the event, but maybe the venue failed to require you to not record anything (anyhow, again, that isn't copyright).</p>

<p>The comedian can file a takedown notice and probably would not get in trouble for perjury, on the assumption that the comedian wrongly believes that he holds the copyright to anything about him (the DMCA notice doesn't require you to be actually correct in your claim to hold copyright – correctness would eventually be determined by the court). If there is a takedown notice filed, you can file a counter-claim explaining why the comedian does not hold copyright. Then the ISP has to wait a bit (2 weeks) and restore the material, unless the complainant files an action against you in court.</p>
