Joe Gratz wrote a post about a very interesting judgment in the case Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., No. 07-3783 (N.D. Cal. August 20, 2008), PDF file.

The purpose of Section 512(f) is to prevent the abuse of takedown notices. If copyright owners are immune from liability by virtue of ownership alone, then to a large extent Section 512(f) is superfluous. As Lenz points out, the unnecessary removal of non-infringing material causes significant injury to the public where time-sensitive or controversial subjects are involved and the counter-notification remedy does not sufficiently address these harms. A good faith consideration of whether a particular use is fair use is consistent with the purpose of the statute. Requiring owners to consider fair use will help “ensure[] that the efficiency of the Internet will continue to improve and that the variety and quality of services on the Internet will expand” without compromising “the movies, music, software and literary works that are the fruit of American creative genius.” Sen. Rep. No. 105-190 at 2 (1998).

I still wonder why such regulation were not included in analogical provisions of Polish or European Union law.