Dancing Baby does not have "unclean hands," rules judge in 'net copyright case

The dancing baby's mom is doing a victory jig today, after winning a copyright case involving this viral video (above) of her cute toddler dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy."

US District Judge Jeremy Fogel granted partial summary judgment to Stephanie Lenz last week in her battle against Universal Music Group, putting a halt to Universal's attempts to paint Lenz as having "bad faith" and "unclean hands" in her lawsuit.

No unclean hands, huh? Well, you ought to see him after someone breaks out a bowl of chocolate pudding or spaghetti. More at Ars Technica. (via Nancy Sims)

• [JoshP]

  After watching the Soviet era Lawrence Welk last night, I has put me in the mood to ponder certain things. The frivolity of a suit about something like this makes me wonder. If you remember your Classics studies then you know hubris comes before the fall. If Capitalism is starting need to defend it’s proprietary capital from its very own means of production… then what is next?

• [jenjen]

  Thank you for keeping us up to date on this – what a stupid ordeal Ms Lenz has had to go through but on behalf of normal people everywhere I’m glad they have continued to pursue it. However, I must dispute your writing in the last sentence. The correct term for the pasta that befouls a child of this size is pasketti.

• [Anonymous]

  Yea! One big victory for common sense!

• [Anonymous]

  Now, that entertainment !

• [davedorr9]

  This is a great post. Thanks.

  In the arstechnica comments, someone refers to the lawyer-speak from UMG as Doublethink. Yes, yes, yes.

  I think we may have reached the point where UMG believes its own strategy because it created the strategy.

  Doubleplusungood.

• [BookGuy]

  What I love the most about these lawsuits is that Universal is actually trying to stop something that could make them more money. Nobody is going to say, “Well, I was going to buy a Prince album, but if I can get 30 seconds of one of his songs on YouTube with really bad audio, then screw it, I’m not buying it.” On the contrary, I could see youngins on the interwebs being introduced to songs like this for the first time and then actually buying a CD or mp3.

• [Edenza]

  Actually he did have “b’sketties” last night for dinner. ;)

• [Dewi Morgan]

  Yay! As an individual victory, this is awesome and huge…

  But it also looks to me sadly like a victory for the bug guys. They show that unless you’re willing to spend two years of your life arguing over it, they can take anything from you – they can stop you showing videos of your kids if they feel like it, and only those tiny minority with the time and energy to fight them, can win.

• [MichaelRN]

  Is it me or is the link borked?

• [Gary]

  Wait. Music is integrated into people’s lives in some way and this video might have just been a way of documenting that moment? That’s impossible. Clearly she sat down that morning and thought, “How can I capitalize on a song from Purple Rain 25 years after it came out and yet not actually get a damn thing out of it?”

• [Anonymous]

  The audio is so muffled that if you hadn’t told me what song was playing, I’m not sure I would have been able to tell. The lawyers at Universal Music Group must all have severe head injuries if they really think this counts as “infringement”. But on the bright side, all I need to do is play this video repeatedly and I’ll be able to save all that money I was going to spend on the CD! *cough*

• [Anonymous]

  Seriously?! They sued over that? What a bunch of idiots! Boycott Universal!