Music company Universal is trying to sue over a baby dancing to a song by Prince

Prince is barely audible in the background of the vid

Prince does like some modern music after all (Getty Images)

I know it’s hard out there for a musician to monetise these days, but you’d think a label the size of Universal could let song use by a dancing infant slide.

The music company demanded that a 29-second video uploaded in 2007 of a small child dancing to a song by Prince be taken down for copyright reasons.

The litigation backfired on Monday though, when a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled against Universal and made it harder for copyright holders in future to sue over very brief and subtle uses of their material.

Thousands of legitimate and understandable takedowns take place every day, when full songs are posted on Soundcloud, YouTube, etc, but the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that copyright-holders must consider whether videos such as the one in question, ‘Let’s Go #1’, amount to copyright theft.

The law “requires copyright-holders to consider fair use before sending a takedown notification,” and those that fail to do so can be held liable for damages, said Judge Richard Tallman, upholding an earlier ruling in San Jose.

Prince is particularly suspicious of music streaming, having previously declared the internet "over".

“Congress gave copyright-holders extraordinary power to send an e-mail and take content offline,” the lawyer of Stephanie Lenz, the mother who posted the video, said. “With that kind of power comes responsibility to consider whether the posting was authorized.”

I'm now going to embed the dancing kid three more times. You go little guy! You dance to Prince and don’t let anyone and especially litigious major labels stop you!

@christophhooton

(via SFGate)