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Aggressive Copyright Positions by Lady Gaga, Burning Man Festival

By Robert W. Clarida and Robert J. Bernstein

Grammy-winning pop singer and “fame monster” Lady Gaga, and the annual avant-garde Burning Man festival have recently taken unusually aggressive copyright positions against people (like photographers and festival attendees) who dare to feature or refer to them in works of authorship. So, for example, if you are a photographer who wishes to shoot a few rolls at a Lady Gaga concert, you may only do so, says Gaga, if you agree in advance that the singer will own copyright in your photographs. If you want to shoot a video of your cousin's extravagant dance ritual at Burning Man, same deal, Burning Man owns it.

What's at issue is control, obviously, and the great lengths to which some will go to maintain it, even as they benefit from the wide-open, free-flowing viral information torrent of the Internet. These copyright acquisitions are not primarily motivated by the desire to exploit the works and make money, but rather by the desire to stop the public circulation of texts and images the new owners do not like.

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