A mother is suing Universal Music Publishing Group for insisting a video of her toddler dancing to music by pop star Prince be yanked from YouTube on copyright violation grounds.

Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyers said they filed a lawsuit yesterday asking a San Francisco federal court to protect the woman's fair use and free speech rights.

"Universal's takedown notice doesn't even pass the laugh test," said EFF lawyer Corynne McSherry.

"Copyright holders should be held accountable when they undermine non-infringing, fair uses like this video."

The 29-second video shows Stephanie Lenz's young son wearing a red jumper and holding a toy stroller for balance as he bounces in place to Prince's song, Let's Go Crazy.

Lenz uploaded the home video to YouTube in February but was informed last month that it was deleted from the website after Universal complained use of the music violates the company's copyright.

"I was really surprised and angry when I learned my video was removed," said Lenz.

"Universal should not be using legal threats to try to prevent people from sharing home videos of their kids with family and friends."

EFF lawyers contend Universal is abusing a Digital Millennium Copyright Act provision that calls on websites to remove copyright material at the behest of owners.

"Copyright abuse can shut down online artists, political analysts, or - as in this case - ordinary families who simply want to share snippets of their day-to-day lives," said EFF lawyer Marcia Hofmann.

Lenz's Let's Go Crazy 1 video has been re-posted on YouTube.
Universal did not return an AFP request for comment regarding the lawsuit.

Woo, Prince is gonna be pissed with this woman!

all I can say is...wow...

She is not gonna win.

wlcm2thdwn said:

I don't think she intends it to ever reach court.....

Wow

This is what pisses me off about biased Prince fans; Prince knows that 30 second snippets are used by Amazon and others for obvious reasons: This is fair use length of recorded intellectual property, but in Prince's case let's just call it a decent pop album.

Better to be informed on legal issues before defending the purple throne. Music is supposed to be free, remember?

Stupid bitch.


Nice promo for Prince though.

My daughter and her friend did a kick-ass dance to "Guitar". I thought about YouTubing it but didn't because of stuff like this, and also I'm not comfortable with my daughter's image being out there.

he could invite this girl on stage to dance at one of the london shows but she might try to dryhump him

Everybody thinks their baby is the cutest thing on earth, get a grip lady, keep the home movies at home

wlcm2thdwn said:

And u thought u had the smartest reply 2 this thread....get a grip urself...she has the right 2 post on youtube just like u and i have the right 2 post there...and here!!