The Electronic Frontier Foundation decided to file a lawsuit yesterday again the Universal Music Publishing Group in an attempt to protect the fair use and free speech rights of a 29 second home video featuring a toddler dancing to a Prince song.

The video was posted for family and friends to watch and enjoy; however, Stephanie Lenz, the mother who posted the video, received notice from YouTube that Universal had complained about copyright infringement.

“Universal should not be using legal threats to try to prevent people from sharing home videos of their kids with family and friends,” Lenz said.

Universal’s claim is pathetic. How can they view a 29 second clip as being infringement? Not only is the song being played in the background in the video, it is barely understandable. There is no need for groundless accusations in an attempt to scare people from posting videos with music. At least if the full song was dubbed into the video after being recorded I could see a reason. But this short clip easily fits into the fair use category.

The lawsuit demands judgement that Lenz’s video is not an infringement of copyright and that Universal drop all claims against the video.

Here is the video. You be the judge.