Prince's label retract copyright claim on banned video of "Purple Rain" fan singalong
Prince’s label forced a takedown of the iconic 2016 fan singalong video of “Purple Rain” that was shot just hours after the singer’s death, but after a 3-day battle with UM it has finally been reinstated.
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After Prince’s passing in 2016, thousands of fans congregated in the streets of Minneapolis to mourn his death. One of the most iconic moments from that night involved a video of those fans singing “Purple Rain” together. The video, shot by the Star Tribune’s Aaron Lavinsky, quickly went viral with his video tweet receiving over 14,000 retweets and 17,000 likes.
However, if you went to look at that tweeted video just days ago, you were met with a screen stating “This broadcast is not available in your location”.
That’s because Prince’s label, Universal Music, filed a DCMA takedown of the video due to supposed copyright infringement.
This is very disturbing: Universal Music filed a DCMA takedown on a video I shot of thousands of Prince fans singing Purple Rain the night of his death. This was clearly fair use and UMPG and Twitter are in the wrong. https://t.co/FOSlPdCqV7
— Aaron Lavinsky (@ADLavinsky) July 25, 2018
Universal Music claimed the video violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DCMA) a law that, according to City Pages, allows “intellectual property owners who believe their copyright is being infringed to file a takedown notice with an internet service provider or a website hosting the content. If the ISP or site immediately removes the content, they can’t be sued.”
Lavinsky took to Twitter after the video was removed to express his concern.
This is very disturbing: Universal Music filed a DCMA takedown on a video I shot of thousands of Prince fans singing Purple Rain the night of his death. This was clearly fair use and UMPG and Twitter are in the wrong. https://t.co/FOSlPdCqV7
— Aaron Lavinsky (@ADLavinsky) July 25, 2018
DCMA takedowns are an important tool for artists who need to protect their intellectual property online, but a major corporation abusing system to remove a news video shot by a newspaper photographer is innappropriate.
— Aaron Lavinsky (@ADLavinsky) July 25, 2018
After Lavinsky’s tweet about the DMCA order, news outlets and fans as far as Israel and Argentina rushed in to show support against UM’s copyright infringement claim stating the video falls under “fair use”.
Fortunately, the stir on social media must have caught the attention of UM, seeing as Lavinsky received notice from Twitter on Friday that his video had been reinstated.
Update: Prince faithful can rejoice — UMPG has retracted their DCMA takedown of my video and it has reappeared in the original tweet. PURPLE RAIN, PURPLE RAIN! https://t.co/CUANM92ppv
— Aaron Lavinsky (@ADLavinsky) July 27, 2018
This isn’t the first time UM retracted a Prince copyright claim. In 2008 a video of a child dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” quickly went viral but was taken down after UM issued a copyright infringement claim.
The content creator fought back, winning the case after a judge ruled that UM had no good reason to believe they had a right to claim copyright infringement.
