MINNEAPOLIS (CelebrityAccess) An emotional moment during a crowd’s mourning of Prince’s death in April 2016 has been taken down because of possible copyright infringment.
Thousands gathered in front of Minneapolis’s iconic First Avenue venue upon hearing of Prince’s passing and joined in on singalongs for songs like “Purple Rain” as they watched videos on the big screen on the venue’s roof. One of the moments, as the crowd sang “Let’s Go Crazy,” was captured by Star-Tribune reporter Aaron Lavinsky, and it was retweeted 14,000 times and received 17,000 likes.
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
However, the video is apparently in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the video has been removed by Universal Music Group. It happens to feature the same song that was at the center of one of the more famous of digital copyright lawsuits, where UMG sued a mother for posting a video of her child dancing to “Let’s Go Crazy.” UMG eventually lost that case.
Of course, everything lives on forever on the Internet, and one can still find footage of the celebration of the song, from inside First Avenue.
Let’s Go Crazy – the Prince memorial dance party continues at @FirstAvenue pic.twitter.com/uM90uSSIXy
— Jay Gabler (@JayGabler) April 22, 2016
