Universal sued for dancing baby take-down
A PENNSYLVANIA woman is being permitted to sue Universal Music for forcing Youtube to take down a video clip of her baby dancing to Prince's Let's Go Crazy.
Universal ordered the video timewasting site to remove a 29-second home video by Stephanie Lenz of Gallitzin, claiming that it violated copyright laws on the song.
However the ruling said that Universal needed to first consider whether the clip was "fair use" of the material. Apparently a knee-jerk take down order followed by an aggressive and threatening legal action is not quite as legal as Universal thought it was.
Fair use provisions of the US copyright act allow segments of copyrighted works to be used for purposes of parody or satire or in reviews and other limited circumstances.
However the ruling is important because it requires copyright owners to consider fair use of their material before leaning on anyone. µ
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The FCC is ordering a media company's lawyers to actually think? Worse yet, to consider the possibility that some things might be "Fair Use"??

Who's gonna clean up the mess from all those imploding heads? 
Things are getting sillier by the day in the Copyright world. I hope they spiral down even more. I hope it bursts. 

This news is so stupid that belongs to the "Midget dressed as clown kills 8" section. The main problem is that is real. Thumbs up for Le'Inq to show this.

by Prince should be banned. Nice mother to expose her kid to that freak at so young an age. Typical sheeple.
Yes, well, when you have US Sentators running around doing the same thing without permission, exactly where are copyright holders supposed to draw the line.

And why would they make an example out of this woman instead of the senate?

Gee i wonder.
That's what happens when you have way too many lawyers running around all trying to make bug bucks. They'd sue their own spouses and children if they thought they would win.

The Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon was right, oh, so right!
Prince's Let's Go Crazy suits are like a lawyer's alimentary canal: endless corporate appetite and greed at one end and a gobshite uttering irresponsibility at the other. A silly sack of make hay that Universal have come to truss. Listen to the music, the songs their singing. Lean On Me. The medium is air. You don't own the air. I breath. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented the children in this case - contend the abuse of takedown notices on the Internet without big daddy and the holding company having to sue and prove a case of infringement, violates a newborn's inalienable rights to free speech and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Universal are the Deadbeat dad that refuses not to bum clean their crap of Depends and nappy horse. The fact that Peter Lofrumento should presume to prevail against a prince's whipping boy, should not leave the law be made a scapegoat to frivolousness. Ignorance has no excuse no matter who lout.
@orangethetan Prince is a great musician, what happened to promoting tolerance and diversity, not as damaging as the magic roundabout I expect or wizard of oz, that's some serious tripped out sh*t.
sorry ,but when it comes to youtube & co, im on the side of the music industry.

thousands (if not millions) of people now produce video clips on a daily basis, with the sole intention of releasing these clips on sites such as youtube.There is nothing wrong with that.The problem is when they use a commercially owned and marketed music clip to give and otherwise boring clip some level of interest.Try turning off the sound and 99% of these apparently funny clips are just boring.Its most often the music that makes the clip and not the visual content.Thats why choosing the right a popular commercial track can make or break the success of your clip. 

Now, anyone who ever purchased music is fully ware of the copyright agreement that goes with it.
You cant play the music at a concert. in a pub,at a wedding, and any public event at all,ect,ect.You purchase it for your own personal listening, not for broadcast.You tube is without any doubt public broadcast.
.If you've never read one of these agreements your an idiot and deserve to get eaten alive by a lawyer.

If you didn't purchase the track , you have even less rights (none at all),let alone the right to enhance your crap video with cool music. 

a cute youtube clip has no more right to use commercial music for public listening than professional movie clip.And anyone just taking the liberty of using music in this way should pay up for their stupidity.

its really no different to any other kind of media.If you want to use it publicly, in any way for your own interest or self expression, be it commercial or not , you have to get permission and pay up !

Thats the way of the world people and the soone r you all stop bitching about it and learn to live with it , the better.


Fair use in the USA is anything under 30 seconds. She's well within her rights.