Dancing baby video lawsuit headed to trial

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court Monday cleared the way for a trial in a copyright lawsuit over a YouTube video showing a baby dancing to the Prince song Let’s Go Crazy.

The lawsuit was filed by the baby’s mother, Stephanie Lenz, after Universal Music sent a notice to YouTube demanding the video be taken down for violating the song’s copyright.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said copyright holders can’t demand videos and other content that uses their material be taken down without determining whether they constitute “fair use.”

Fair use allows segments of copyrighted works to be used for purposes of criticism, comment, research or in other limited circumstances without a licence from the copyright holder.

Lenz said the video is fair use, and Universal had failed to consider that before ordering the video taken down.

Universal said it considered fair use and still determined the use of Prince’s song in the video was unauthorized.

The 9th Circuit said a jury would have to decide whether Universal had done enough to form a good-faith belief that the video violated fair use. The court agreed with a lower court that rejected Universal’s and Lenz’s motions to grant pre-trial judgments in their favour.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation represented Lenz and said Monday’s ruling had ramifications beyond her case.

“Today’s ruling sends a strong message that copyright law does not authorize thoughtless censorship of lawful speech,” EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry said in a statement.

Universal Music did not immediately have any comment.