For three years, musician Maria Schneider has battled YouTube in court in hopes of challenging the platform’s Content ID system. With the case set for a trial, prospects are looking grim for the Grammy winner. Schneider has called for the trial to be delayed so that she can respond to a judicial decision she described as “erroneous.”
In her lawsuit, Schneider argues that YouTube’s rights management system protects powerful interests through its Content ID technology while leaving independent artists out in the cold. That dichotomy, according to Schneider, creates a “hotbed of copyright infringement through [YouTube’s] development and implementation of a copyright enforcement system that protects only the most powerful copyright owners such as major studios and record labels.”
Schneider hoped to gather support from other aggrieved YouTube creators by turning her court case into a class-action lawsuit. YouTube protested that decision, describing the class-action status as a “moving target.” Initially, U.S. District Court judge James Donato ruled in Schneider’s favor by denying YouTube’s attempt to throw out the case.
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Recent developments, however, have not been kind to the Grammy winner. In January, YouTube won a partial summary judgement, which led to the dismissal of 27 infringement claims made by Schneider. Then, in May, Donato threw another wrench in Schneider’s plans by refusing to allow the lawsuit to continue as a class-action case.
“It has been said that copyright claims are poor candidates for class-action treatment, and for good reason,” Donato wrote. “Every copyright claim turns upon facts which are particular to that single claim of infringement [and] every copyright claim is also subject to defenses that require their own individualized inquiries.”
Donato’s ruling sent Schneider scrambling. The jazz bandleader argued that the “manifestly erroneous” decision “gravely undermines” her case. Donato denied the class-action claim just three weeks before the scheduled trial date.
In response, Schneider turned to the U.S. appeals court in hopes of being granted a stay for the upcoming trial. “The named plaintiffs here joined the case to litigate class claims, and to vindicate their view that YouTube tramples on the rights of independent artists and smaller copyright holders overall, not just those of the individual plaintiffs,” Schneider’s attorneys wrote. “A brief stay here to allow this court to…ensure that the district court’s last-minute, haphazard, and erroneous conclusion that this case cannot be tried on a classwide basis does not endanger the progress of this litigation.”
Schneider’s attempt to delay the trial faces long odds. In declarations made after his latest decision, Donato decreed that it’s time for the long-running case to reach its conclusion. “You got a trial set on June 12th,” he said. “This is a 2020 case; okay. It’s showtime.”
Though her lawsuit is on thin ice, Schneider is still finding success in her music career. Earlier this year, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
[UPDATE: One day before the trial was set to begin, Schneider decided to voluntarily dismiss her lawsuit. After her claim for class-action status was denied, the musician was unable to obtain a stay that would have added an extension to her legal fight.]
