SAN FRANCISCO -- A Pennsylvania mother sued Universal Music Publishing Co. in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday for forcing YouTube to take down her home video of her toddler son dancing to 29 seconds of a Prince song.
Stephanie Lenz's lawsuit accuses Universal Music of sending YouTube an allegedly baseless complaint on June 4 claiming that her video violated the company's copyright to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy."
The complaint resulted in YouTube's removal of the video from its Web site for six weeks until Lenz sent the video-sharing Web site a counter-notice demanding reposting, the lawsuit says.
Lenz said, "I was really surprised and angry when I learned my video was removed. Universal should not be using legal threats to try to prevent people from sharing videos of their kids with family and friends."
The lawsuit contends the brief video is protected by the doctrine of fair use, which allows limited use of copyrighted material for purposes such as commentary and artistic expression.
The 29-second film shows Lenz's 18-month-old son Holden bouncing to the rock star's song and smiling at the camera as he pushes a rolling walker around her kitchen.
Lenz, a writer who lives in the western Pennsylvania town of Gallitzin, recorded the scene with a digital camera in February and posted it on YouTube for her family and friends to see, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks a court order barring Universal from filing future copyright claims over the video as well as unspecified financial compensation for Lenz's loss of free speech and her costs in securing the reposting.
Lenz is represented by attorneys from the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has a project of protecting online free speech.
EFF attorney Jason Schultz said the lawsuit was filed in the federal court for Northern California because YouTube has headquarters in San Bruno and is now owned by Mountain View-based Google.
Schultz said Lenz claims the background recording of the song was fair use because it was brief, noncommercial personal use and was employed in artistic expression.
"The music is playing in her kitchen. She's just recording her child," the attorney said.
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