Lego has prohibited parody rock band Spinal Tap from including a stop-motion video of Lego characters performing the song ‘Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight’ in a concert DVD of their ‘Unwigged and Unplugged’ tour, citing copyright infringement.
The stop-action video, created by US teenager Coleman Hickey in 2007, is a YouTube hit with over 82,000 views and features Spinal Tap Lego characters singing, playing guitar and crowd surfing on top of their Lego fans.
Lego declined to grant permission to use its figures, which are protected by copyright.
Julie Stern, a spokeswoman for Lego Systems, the US division of the Lego Group, told The New York Times: “We love that our fans are so passionate and so creative with our products.
“But it had some inappropriate language, and the tone wasn’t appropriate for our target audience of kids 6 to 12.”
Lego said it had not removed Hickey’s stop-action video from YouTube, along with many others like it, because the video-sharing site “is a less commercial use”.
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