Internet Archive's big battle with music publishers ends in settlement

> He suggested that perhaps labels just "don't like the Internet Archive's way of pushing the envelope on copyright and fair use."

This seems to be the whole ballgame.

They're (UMG, specifically) doing the same to YouTuber Rick Beato. His music theory/analysis/reaction videos are very careful to abide by the rules of _fair use_ and, yet, UMG is still drowning him in copyright violation claims. He's had to hire representation to deal with the backlog of claims that are (extremely likely) all bogus and _hope_ to keep his videos and channel online.

On one hand, their behavior is baffling, as I've streamed and purchased music from these companies I would not have otherwise because of Beato's channel. On the other, it's completely unsurprising, as they stand to _have their cake and eat it too_ by introducing chokepoints for _all_ access to their music (in theory, anyways) and suing anyone in the hopes of inking these bullshit settlements with anyone who dares get within a few miles of their moat.

I know with trademarks, the law puts a perverse incentive on businesses to ruthlessly attack uses of their trademark. If they allow even innocuous uses of it, then they risk the trademark becoming generic and losing all rights over it [1].

I wonder if a similar perverse incentive and emergent behavior is in play here where record labels worry that any encroachment on fair use could set a precedent that will come back to bite them.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark

It's really a quite different set of law because the whole point of a trademark is that it uniquely identifies a particular seller so that buyers can distinguish it from others in the market. If that identification weakens then your trademark becomes meaningless and can no longer be enforced. But that logic doesn't apply to copyright.