In 2008, Universal Music fraudulently claimed that a short Youtube clip
of a toddler dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” was a copyright
infringement, leading to eight years of litigation
and, eventually, a landmark ruling secured by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation in which the court found that Universal had a duty to
consider fair use before using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to
censor other peoples’ media.
Universal is a slow learner.
When Prince died, thousands of his fans gathered in his hometown of
Minneapolis to sing “Purple Rain”; Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter
Aaron Lavinsky recorded a video of that moving tribute and uploaded it
to Twitter, where it has racked up more than 500,000 views.
Years later – and after having lost the landmark “Dancing Baby” case so
very comprehensively – Stupid Universal has sent a Digital Millennium
Copyright Act complaint to Twitter, getting Lavinsky’s video censored.
After negative publicity, Universal apparently decided that it didn’t
want to waste another eight years finding out how totally wrong it was,
and withdrew the complaint.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 