Jonathan Coulton Song Used By Glee Without Permission 307
FunPika writes "Jonathan Coulton, who is known for songs such as "Code Monkey", is claiming that his cover of "Baby Got Back" was used without permission on Glee, a television show aired by Fox Broadcasting Company. When the Glee version appeared on YouTube last week, Coulton suspected that it sounded similar to his cover, and several of his fans confirmed this by analyzing the two tracks. Despite Coulton contacting Fox, they continued with airing the episode and have placed the song on sale in iTunes."
Copyright protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the point at which he should submit a DMCA takedown request to Apple [apple.com].
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Screw that, this is where you go Bittersweet Symphony on their ass..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Sweet_Symphony
Rolling stones bent over The Verve and took all the money generated from their #1 hit because it contained "too much of a sample" that they had licensed.
I say let this track run iTunes, and then sue them for all the money it generated.
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IANAL, but if you believe your IP is being violated, wouldn't it look pretty bad in court if you just let damages accrue, and only filed a case after the defendant had made a bunch of money? Especially since this guy is on the books as having noticed his IP is being violated.
Re:Copyright protection (Score:4, Interesting)
wouldn't it look pretty bad in court if you just let damages accrue, and only filed a case after the defendant had made a bunch of money?
Generally, no. In the specific case of trademark law, you can lose your trademark if you don't defend it, but with copyright and patents, there is no such 'problem'. Submarine patents are a real thing, look at the case of GIF.
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Insightful)
wouldn't it look pretty bad in court if you just let damages accrue, and only filed a case after the defendant had made a bunch of money?
Generally, no. In the specific case of trademark law, you can lose your trademark if you don't defend it, but with copyright and patents, there is no such 'problem'. Submarine patents are a real thing, look at the case of GIF.
If you know about copyright infringement and don't act on it, then infringers might be able to employ the defenses of "laches" (unreasonable delay) or "equitable estoppel" (misleading the infringers to believe you're not going to pursue them). I'm not familiar with the GIF case, but my guess is that they were able to show that they were still actively enforcing the patent (even if "actively" is an exaggeration).
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Insightful)
He contacted Fox. Everything is on them now. (And actually, it doesn't really matter whether he contacted them or not. But he probably has a more solid case since they knew of the infringement claim and continued to infringe.)
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And Fox has contacted back ( http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2013/01/18/baby-got-back-and-glee/ ) to tell him he should be grateful for the exposure they gave him. You know, that exposure they gave by using his arrangement without any credit whatsoever. The Super Secret Exposure. I wonder how grateful Fox is for the exposure that a Bittorrent user gives them by sharing out full episodes of Glee.
It almost makes me want to start watching Glee just so I could stop watching them in protest.
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Informative)
In copyright law (and in most, if not all, areas of IP) there is a defense called "equitable estoppel." The copyright owner's lack of action against an alleged infringement that he or she knows about can sometimes be interpreted as permission to continue use. There's also a defense called "laches" (pronounced: "latches") which can be employed in response to unreasonable delays in prosecution.
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With a patent, you may not (in the USA) claim any damages that happened between the time when you first became aware of the infringement and the time when you notified the infringing party.
I think you mean "With a patent, you may not (in the USA) claim any damages that happened between the time when they can prove you first became aware of the infringement and the time when you notified the infringing party.
Re:Copyright protection (Score:4, Interesting)
Screw that, this is where you go Bittersweet Symphony on their ass..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Sweet_Symphony
Rolling stones bent over The Verve and took all the money generated from their #1 hit because it contained "too much of a sample" that they had licensed.
I say let this track run iTunes, and then sue them for all the money it generated.
They Also did the exact same to Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine over the song After The Watershed [youtube.com]
They took Carter for a sizeable sum of cash and Jagger then got writing credits as well. apparently the song also contained a bass riff from "satisfaction"
Carter then pretty much used the money from their next album to pay the rubber lipped old twat linky [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Copyright protection (Score:4, Informative)
wtf.... BONGOS gave the copyrights to the song over the Jagger and Richards? that is fucked up....that song is 99% not written by those douche bags.
Then you obviously haven't heard the mix they are talking about:
"Song credits
Although the song's lyrics were written by Verve vocalist Richard Ashcroft, it has been credited to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger after charges by the original copyright owners that the song was plagiarized from the Andrew Oldham Orchestra recording of The Rolling Stones' 1965 song "The Last Time"."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKC5cdGBY04 [youtube.com]
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Ooh, I'll have to write the Rolling Stones a thank-you letter for getting that terrible, maudlin piece of crap off the radio. And here I thought the Stones hadn't done anything worthwhile since the 70s.
It did the reverse for a while - Richard Ashcroft said he'd never sell out and allow any of his music to be used on TV advertisements.. After the decision, the new copyright holders thought different...
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That anime soundtrack stuff is pretty obscure, yet my ears require a higher standard of obscurity. With Haitian techno becoming a bit passe*, my ears cry out for a Lebanese barber playing an oud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy6zRQsmeb0 [youtube.com]
He's actually pretty decent.
* Will Slashdot beat the Amish in the race to build a discussion site that supports UTF-8 encoded comments?
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This is the point at which he should submit a DMCA takedown request to Apple [apple.com].
And Youtube, obviously. And most importantly: Hulu and any other sites that host Glee on demand -- Fox, for example. Dish and DirectTV also have on demand access, are they susceptible to DMCA requests?
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Being right, and obviously so, doesn't guarantee a win, just multiplies your lawyer money.
Mcyroft
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Re:Copyright protection (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Informative)
Coulton got the ok to do a version of baby got back. He did a new and unique arrangement and performance. Glee did an identical rip-off of his song without permission, then aired it and put it on itunes for purchase.
Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY84MRnxVzo [youtube.com]
Coulton's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCWaN_Tc5wo [youtube.com]
Glee rip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yww4BLjReEk [youtube.com]
You'll notice the second two are identical and very different from the first.
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Copyright protection (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the issue is less that they didn't pay him and more that they are fronting as if they came up with it rather than giving him the professional courtesy of credit.
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Informative)
There is separate licensing for covers and derivative works. Coulton only got a license to cover, although his certainly an original take on it, he has no special ownership over his version, anyone else getting a license to cover can perform a version identical to coultons.
Except the Berne Convention gives him copyright over the derivative work. They cannot just steal it and say "welp, it's a cover, so you have no rights." Especially since it's an original arrangement (he didn't just sing along to the original instruments).
And it's not that they just got a licence and decided to do an acoustic, folk-like version like Coulton did. They literally used inverse phase wave mapping to remove the vocals on his song, then sang the same lyrics, including the "Johnny C's in Trouble" line (whereas the original was "Mix-a-Lot's in Trouble"), and this is key: On top of his original instrumental track.
They blatantly stole a song online, are attempting to profit from it, and oh yeah, the producer for Glee basically taunted Coulton on Twitter, suggesting he should be happy he got ripped off.
Oh, and did I mention that this isn't the first time they've done it? By far?
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Although the Glee version is a very close reproduction, I don't think it's done by channel phase inverting trick because that technique results in a mono backing track, and their backing track is clearly stereo. Plus if you listen closely on headphones you can hear they're using different drum samples and the instruments sound a bit different.
However, it's worth noting that the only thing used in Jonathan Coulton's cover from the original is the lyrics. The cover has completely new chord progression and vocal melody that doesn't exist in the original rap at all. Essentially in this case the "cover" is a completely different song with the lyrics from "Baby got back", so I think it's still a clear copyright violation regardless of how they reproduced Coulton's music.
Re:Copyright protection (Score:5, Informative)
They literally used inverse phase wave mapping to remove the vocals on his song, then sang the same lyrics, including the "Johnny C's in Trouble" line
Although the Glee version is a very close reproduction, I don't think it's done by channel phase inverting trick because that technique results in a mono backing track, and their backing track is clearly stereo. Plus if you listen closely on headphones you can hear they're using different drum samples and the instruments sound a bit different.
However, it's worth noting that the only thing used in Jonathan Coulton's cover from the original is the lyrics. The cover has completely new chord progression and vocal melody that doesn't exist in the original rap at all. Essentially in this case the "cover" is a completely different song with the lyrics from "Baby got back", so I think it's still a clear copyright violation regardless of how they reproduced Coulton's music.
Here's a version where someone synched up the two versions via the first few instrumental hits at the start of the song:
https://soundcloud.com/alacrion/joco-v-glee [soundcloud.com]
Literally they are note for note the same as far as instrumental bits go. Ok, there are SMALL differences are when they used the audio version of a poorly done photoshop job to remove certain elements, like the duck quacking (which can still be heard, faintly), but, that's just me.
And yeah, it's a clear copyright violation. And the guys from Glee should know better. However, I *believe* their stance is that JoCo is just some silly little Internet artist and they can get away with this because what can he do, eh?
I personally think they vastly underestimated how big his followings are on the Interwebs, and how loud us computer nerds can be when we feel one of our own (remember, Coulton was a Slashdotting computer programmer before making it big as a musician) is being thrown under the bus.
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be argued that the melody in his cover is of his own creation even if the lyrics aren't.
No, it can't, not if he wants to use his license to a cover. Thats the point. He doesn't get special protection for 'his parts' because of the license he used to cover it.
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And that is why copyright law needs to be reformed. Seriously, this shit sounds ludicrous for anyone who is not a lawyer.
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Hehe... The original actually samples 2 Live Crew's "Me So Horny", which in turn... Nah, enough is enough. Everybody samples each other. Stop arguing about money and just give credit, okay?
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What, did anyone think that copyright was intended to protect anyone except the rich and powerful?
It's not????????
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Arrangements of nonprotectible elements are, in fact, copyrightable. See Reader's Digest Association, Inc. v. Conservative Digest, Inc., 821 F.2d 800 (D.C. Cir. 1987). (magazine cover made up an arrangement of nonprotectible elements was copyrightable) Note, though, that in Reader's Digest, only the arrangement was protected by that copyright. If you're talking about "arrangements" in the musical sense, those are only copyrightable after they are "fixed in a tangible medium." 17 U.S.C. 102. That is,
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as a typical /.er I did not RTFA... but how can he claim rights to a cover? he covered a song, and he is claiming copyright on the cover of a song, that is copyritten by someone else? Am I understanding this correctly???
Coulton parodied a song and is entitled a copyright protecting only his original contributions to the parody. Someone else copying the song verbatim happens to copy his protected contributions and thus is infringement. If they simply made their own parody on the original song (without copying the Coulton parody), then we'd be having a different discussion.
Why this law exists... (Score:3)
OK so that's me replying to myself twice in a row -- bad form, I know.
But after the last post I remembered stuff I'd read about the development of the record industry in the states. Basically, in the old days there wasn't really any such thing as a "cover", because hardly anyone wrote their own stuff, and everyone was recording exactly the same thing anyway. But "derivative works" were recognised as separate works in law, and record labels started working that to their advantage. They would get their art
speed of takedowns (Score:5, Insightful)
interesting to see how a joe average gets smacked down like a gnat with a buick on youtube, but then we see the exact opposite here? Or didn't they file a takedown notice?
Did you listen? (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, reports are that the show lifts a *lot* of differently done arrangements of well known songs done by obscure people without permission without a shred of apologetic tone or credit given.
But at least it is equal opportunity, a fair number of more well known musicians whose songs have been featured aren't exactly pleased to hear their works crop up in that show either.
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IIRC, some bands sued the Guitar Hero and similar games because they made almost identical cover versions.
I don't know, but I'll bet it costs a lot less to do a professionally-released (so to speak) cover than to republish actual recordings. So what to do when people really get their rocks off to the big hit original and dislike even slight variations? Easy! Clone it down to the atomic level.
But maybe that "cover", while technically new, is so close it falls afoul of copyrights or the contracts studios w
Re:speed of takedowns (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:speed of takedowns (Score:4, Informative)
It's worth pointing out that this was released under Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial [creativecommons.org]" license, which means anyone can adapt (remix, sing over, etc.) and distribute it, but must give due credit to the original author and must not use it for any commercial purpose.
Re:speed of takedowns (Score:5, Informative)
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But to be clear, it was the non-commercial Creative Commons license.
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Have you actually listened to the two songs, side by side?
Go listen, then come back. We'll be here.
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So you are telling us to listen to Glee and Jonathan Coulton? You are a bad man. A bad bad man. Shame on you.
Old news (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/18/3891836/glee-uses-jonathan-coultons-cover-of-baby-got-back-without-permission [theverge.com]
There's no protection for a cover. However, the Glee people weren't nice because they didn't credit him for his ultra-boring cover of a great song.
Re:Old news (Score:5, Informative)
What Glee released is not a "cover." It actually samples his recording. If they'd re-recorded all the instrumental parts in the exact style that JoCo arranged them, they'd be in the clear. But they didn't. They sang, karaoke-style, over his instrumental recordings.
From your link:
(If Glee's producers used clips of Coulton's actual recording, like the duck sound, it's different: that would be copyright infringement of his sound recording.)
Re:Old news (Score:5, Informative)
What Glee released is not a "cover." It actually samples his recording.
And Coulton's version isn't just a cover either. If you listen to the Sir Mix-a-Lot version and then to the Coulton version, Coulton's puts the lyrics to a melody that wasn't there in the original rap song. Coulton owns the copyright of this melody.
Re:Old news (Score:5, Informative)
It also notes that JoCo has posted that that happened:
What's more, Coulton also believes that Glee's music directors also illegally sampled his version, noting specifically that the sound of a duck quacking...
and then it goes on, undaunted by that detail, to talk about the legal ramifications of JoCo's claim assuming that the above is false, even though it gives absolutely no reason to doubt that it is true.
https://soundcloud.com/alacrion/joco-v-glee [soundcloud.com] Here is a demonstration of the claim's truth. Now, like, let's keep on talking about why JoCo's legal claim has no merit in some other hypothetical universe where the Glee people actually went to the trouble of re-recording it, even though they didn't in this universe.
I've heard note-for-note covers that accurate (Score:2)
So just noting they sound similar doesn't prove it wasn't reperformed.
And Coulton stops short of saying it wasn't reperformed, he says "he thinks he can hear a quack in there" and "maybe someone can find it for him".
There are hyper-accurate note-for-note covers out there for the purpose of avoiding copyright. Check Spotify. Prince even threatened to do it to his own songs because he didn't own the masters, just the creative copyright.
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Re:I've heard note-for-note covers that accurate (Score:5, Interesting)
Listen to the Soundcloud link I posted. Use headphones. This is not a hyper-accurate note-for-note cover. If it were that, there would be all sorts of stereo phasing wildness going on in your ears, because they would be all confused by the Haas effect. That is not going on because the instrumentals are the same instrumental.
http://s9.postimage.org/qq104s1zh/joco_glee_comparison.gif [postimage.org]
Here is a spectrogram comparison I made from the first 15 seconds of each song, starting from the attack of the second 'clap' sample. They're not identical obviously, owing to different mastering and compression on the tracks, in addition to the differing vocal performances going on over top. But, the spectral components they share in common are clear. If you look at that clap sample by itself, before the vocals and other instrumentation start up, they are obviously the same sample.
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The Glee version shows characteristic loss of data above 16k -- this was ripped from an mp3 or other lossy format at some point.
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More awkwardly for Fox, the Glee version uses Jonathan Coulton's revised lyrics. Listen at 2:16 (of the Glee version) to hear the line "Johnny C's in trouble". I don't know if they owe him money, but certainly a nod in his direction wouldn't have been a bad thing. I don't watch this High School Glee Factor Musical shite, so maybe someone with impaired tastes could tell us whether or not there's any kind of credit to him?
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https://soundcloud.com/alacrion/joco-v-glee Here is a demonstration of the claim's truth.
Well done! Kudos to alacrion.
What would be even more convincing would be reversing the phase of one and summing them. If aligned and level-corrected perfectly the music would drop out. If not, it would do a "phaser" effect. That happens when the waveforms themselves align and add or cancel. You can't get it to happen with a cover, or even two performances by the same artist on the same acoustic instrument. It only
Re:Old news (Score:4, Informative)
What would be even more convincing would be reversing the phase of one and summing them. ...
However, while the phasing effect from such a recording would pop out at you, if you have good stereoscopic hearing this is just as convincing: The instrumental is heard at the center, one lyric performance on the left, the other on the right. If the instrumentals were a cover rather than phase-identical they'd be heard as a "chorus" - unison performances - by two guitars, one on each side.
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I spent a couple minutes in Audacity trying unsuccessfully to do this, but all I have to work with (being on my Linux work computer) were fairly low-bitrate mp3s, and one artifact of frequency-domain compression schemes is that they produce phase distortion. I‘ll give it another try later from my music workstation with flac files (if i can find some.)
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I will quote the article, which does indeed quote Title 17, section 115 (copyright law compulsory license). The author bolds the parts he thinks are important and ignores the whole middle including a very important part that I will bold.
"A compulsory license includes the privilege of making a musical arrangement of the work to the extent necessary to conform it to the style or manner of interpretation of the performance involved, but the arrangement shall not change the basic melody or fundamental character
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Creative Commons (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? "Baby Got Back" is most certainly not licensed under Creative Commons.
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Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
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Actually, no. If you look up the law, arrangements are not owned by the arranger, they are owned by the original copyright holder. Even Coulton said as much in TFA.
Now, IF they sampled his actual audio (the "mechanical copyright" in legal terms) then that would be copyright infringement. It's possible they did that, but will be pretty hard to prove definitively...
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Now, IF they sampled his actual audio (the "mechanical copyright" in legal terms) then that would be copyright infringement. It's possible they did that, but will be pretty hard to prove definitively...
Hard to prove, but there's certainly a lot of evidence that they did.
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A derived work can still be infringed.
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Effectively, it is: See the Verge [theverge.com] for a discussion. Unless they used his actual voice, he has no leg to stand on.
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Oh the VERGE! Now there's a paragon of reliable legal information!
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Follow their sources.
Don't shoot the messenger.
I think he's got a case (Score:2)
I don't really see how the melody he wrote for the song is not covered though, that isn't a copy of the original song at all. A song is not solely com
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since they also used Coulton's unique additions to the song
irrelevant
and possibly stole his audio
super, super relevant. Everyone in this post who is glossing over that part is completely missing the point, legally speaking.
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Re:I think he's got a case (Score:5, Informative)
FTFY.
A cover is a derivative work. It is covered by copyright to the extent that it contains new, original creative expression above and beyond the original work. So to say that "it's not really covered by copyright law" is pretty much completely wrong unless the cover sounds almost exactly like the original, which his cover clearly does not. At all.
Oh, his melody is most assuredly covered by copyright. Unquestionably. Anyone who says otherwise is either deliberately lying or knows nothing whatsoever about copyright law. It's an independent musical expression sufficient to be protected on its own by copyright if not combined with those lyrics. Therefore, it is protected just the same as any other artistic creation. If Fox really stole his original melody, and continued to use it even after having been informed that their use was not authorized, that meets the criteria for willful infringement. I believe the words "treble damages" come to mind.
Based on what I'm reading, it sounds like Fox isn't remotely on the right side of the law here. I would strongly urge Mr. Coulton to contact a lawyer who specializes in copyright cases. What Fox's lawyers are telling him is complete bulls**t, and they're pretty much pissing their pants hoping he doesn't sue, because they have a pretty good idea how many figures they'll lose if he does.
I would also strongly urge Mr. Coulton to file a proper takedown request with Apple. This forces Fox to put all their cards on the table, and gives them notice that you intend to take action if they don't come to a reasonable settlement. It also takes their content off of iTunes for at least a few days, during which they're losing a metric f**kton of sales. This has a tendency to force their lawyers to take your claims seriously, where they otherwise might not.
That said, IANAL, and this is not legal advice except for the the "you should contact a copyright lawyer" bit.
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The issue isn't the cover version, but in reality, the use of a sampled recording of Mr. Coulton's, a totally separate issue and a fairly straightforward form of copyright infringement if true.
This is a significant distinction that very few people seem to have understood in the discussions on this topic I've seen over the past week.
However, depending on the use of the recording and who owns the copyright in that recording, it's possible that the show actually did clear the use.
It seems pretty clear from his statements that Coulton did not give anyone permission to use the recordings, and I'm not aware of anyone else who would have copyrights on his recordings for this song. Any legal experts out there who can speak to what would be require to prove infringement of the recordings? The soundcloud mixes et al that are out there are pretty damni
Re:I think he's got a case (Score:4, Informative)
I never said that they are infringing. I merely said that they are derivative works. Whether they are infringing or not depends on whether you have a license (whether compulsory or otherwise). If they were not derivative works, you wouldn't need a license.
Also, compulsory licensing is basically irrelevant here. Fox doesn't have a compulsory license for his music. Nobody does compulsory licensing when distributing something to millions of people. Glee has an average of something like 9 million viewers, so that would cost them the better part of a million bucks in compulsory licensing fees. Major labels and TV networks and the like always negotiate a much lower rate than the statutory rate, or else they don't use your music.
I never said otherwise. Please reread what I said. The recording is entitled to copyright protection as a recording, in that the recording itself is an artistic work above and beyond the original. However, because it is a derivative work, the copyright protection extends only to changed elements (which includes the recording itself, by virtue of the fact that it isn't the original recording).
However, if I create a cover of a song and then somebody else does a cover of a song, and if we both imitate something that is present in the original recording, I can't sue over it, because the original recording holds copyright over that element, and mine does not. Not that this has any relevance in this particular case, of course. And that is what I mean when I say that copyright covers only changed elements.
No, that's only part of it. The issue is that Mr. Coulton's "cover" set a rap song to music that did not exist in the original work. Therefore, the music itself has a copyright separate and independent from the recording. So if they used the music, that's a copyright, violation, and if they used the actual recording, that's a second copyright violation.
So arrangements can't be protected by copyright... (Score:2)
...yet ASCAP and BMI frequently go after those who allow public domain music to be played claiming the arrangement was copyrighted by one of their members (and it's up to you to prove it wasn't)
Just more proof that copyright is only for the big guys.
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Just more proof that copyright is only for the big guys.
As was and ever shall be. Look up the history of the concept. From the very beginning, it was invented to allow publishers to sue other publishers for releasing the same work. Never, in all its history, was it ever created to benefit artists.
The idea that copyright was invented for artists is one of the biggest of the Big Lies plaguing society, and it's a lie that's literally hundreds of years old.
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The thing is that TV has MANDATORY licensing... So FOX doesn't technically have to "prepay" or ask to use any music they want. The INDIVIDUAL stations punch their cards and turn in X royalties per musical number for every Commercial and Show they air.... This avoids the "YouTube" problem, of infringing background music, everybody keeps bringing up.
He can probably get the song taken down from iTunes as that is a seperate distribution.
A problem so easily avoided... (Score:5, Insightful)
All of these people being stolen from would be content with so little as an off-screen credit through some blog post or something. If they wanted to be decent human beings, they would have thrown in an on-screen one liner mentioning the names of the people that are actually responsible for the arrangements, rather than trying to perpetuate the lie that the people behind that show have even an ounce of original musical talent.
All this stuff they could have done without spending so much as a dime...
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Despite I like JoCo and that I agree overall with your opinion. I think we should not forget that it is copyright infrigment, and not theft.
This... (Score:2)
Major Irony Here (Score:2)
TV version (Score:2)
Not the first time Glee did this (Score:5, Insightful)
They stole Greg Laswell's arrangement of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" about a year ago.
http://www.pleasewelcomeyourjudges.com/2011/11/greg-laswell-not-glee-ful-about.html
Time for Payback (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope someone with lawyer skills steps up to help pay back the debt. Let me know where I can donate.
When it goes the other way... (Score:3)
There is (or was) a YouTube artist who called herself Venetian Princess who took recordings of songs and sang her own parody lyrics over the top of them. (For those keeping track, when Weird Al does a parody, he records his own version of the music, thereby avoiding this problem.) Unfortunately for her, that's infringement, of precisely the type Fox has committed. She got crushed like a bug. Her videos were yanked off of YouTube and the lawyers ate her face.
So.... we're waiting. We can expect every Glee episode to be yanked for alleged infringement now, right?
Right? ...
*crickets*
Re:Its not Jonathons song (Score:5, Insightful)
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Interestingly, Coulton made some changes to the lyrics of the song itself, and those changes were used in the show. For instance, the line "Johnny C is in trouble" is in the Glee "rendition."
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Re:frist post? (Score:5, Interesting)
This was a triumph.
You could at least have used the first post to point out that this is the artist who wrote and performed "Still Alive" from the video game Portal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI [youtube.com]
Not sure how this wasn't in TFS.
Re:frist post? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:frist post? (Score:4, Informative)
The in-game version was sung by Ellen McLain, but JoCo sang on the Portal Soundtrack. Here's one of his versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxNmeMklFk8 [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Look, even though I think the song is shit, the cover is shit, the show is shit, and all the people that were involved in shitting all over each other just because they cant be bothered to acknowledge each others shitty efforts are shitty people, I still give shit about this shit because its all right for fox to rip people off when they have trucks of money already, but it's not all right the other way around? Just bullshit.
I hope that clears things up?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Okay, so... $2M fine, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be $150 000 per infringement times 6 million viewers, but it might just be per track not per downloaded copy. That single mom [msn.com] had to pay ~$35 000 per track, and it mention that people settle at $3 500 per track.