From its earliest days, YouTube was constructed on a foundation of three things — hilarious kittens, stupid teenagers and dancing babies. But now that YouTube plays host to the likes of Oprah, heaven forbid any of your videos have Sony music playing in the background, lest the copyright police come after you.

Consumerist reader Samantha wrote in to let us know that a YouTube video of her baby daughter goofing around while “The Codfish Ball” plays in the background had been flagged by YouTube because the tune playing “may have content that is owned or licensed by Sony Music Entertainment.”

YouTube didn’t pull the video, but did put an ad on the clip. Rather than argue with YouTube over their claim or have her family video used to make money for Sony, Samantha pulled the video and re-uploaded to Vimeo.

But, she says, “The music in question will be the LAST that I ever purchase produced by those wankers.”

Here’s the Vimeo version of the video… Do you think this merits being flagged for copyright violation? If not, at what point does background music become something that the music industry has a right to get upset about?

Codfish Ball Isadora from Susan Helgeson on Vimeo.

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