What if I've never heard of Madonna? Does the law actually encode some sort of pop-knowledge into itself?
A reasonable* person would have heard of Madonna and would respond to such evidence of infringement in a timely fashion.
* The definition of 'a reasonable person' is a vexed one. While it's popularly understood to mean something like 'a regular Joe/Jill,' and that's good enough for many purposes, it might be more helpful to think of it as 'someone whose behavior could be reasoned ahead of time by a third party.' So if you're running a site dedicated to music, and given that Madonna is one of the most famous music performers in the world, it's logical (reasonable) to assume you would know who she is. OTOH if you were running some antiquarian maps hosting site and someone uploaded a Madonna video there, you might be excused for not appreciating the significance of same in any action for damages.
A reasonable* person would have heard of Madonna and would respond to such evidence of infringement in a timely fashion.
* The definition of 'a reasonable person' is a vexed one. While it's popularly understood to mean something like 'a regular Joe/Jill,' and that's good enough for many purposes, it might be more helpful to think of it as 'someone whose behavior could be reasoned ahead of time by a third party.' So if you're running a site dedicated to music, and given that Madonna is one of the most famous music performers in the world, it's logical (reasonable) to assume you would know who she is. OTOH if you were running some antiquarian maps hosting site and someone uploaded a Madonna video there, you might be excused for not appreciating the significance of same in any action for damages.
/NAL