Tag Archives: fair use

Dean Gray Tuesday…er…Wednesday

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I didn’t get around to posting this yesterday, so I’ll tell folks about it now. Actually, I’ll let BoingBoing explain.

Today is Dean Gray Tuesday, a net-wide day of protest over Warner Brothers attempt to censor a stupendous noncommercial mashup album called American Edit that remixes Green Day’s album American Idiot.

For today, websites across the Internet are mirroring the American Edit album and/or turning their page-backgrounds grey. Mashup albums don’t hurt the sales of the albums they sample — at worst, they have no effect on sales, at best they can promote them. Artists who are signed to major labels can avail themselves of labels’ legal departments when they want to remix others’ work and get their samples cleared. Indie artists, hobbyists and fans don’t get legal assistance from labels’ high-priced fixers. This is pure patronage: in the old days you couldn’t make art unless the King or some bishop granted you permission; today you need permission from a studio executive.

The labels admit this. Last year, EMI made headlines by censoring DJ Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, which remixed the Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album. I raised this with an EMI representative at London’s Creative Economy conference and she shrugged it off: "What’s the problem? We later hired Danger Mouse to make a mashup album for us."

The problem is that copyright law is supposed to decentralize the process of making art, moving the power to authorize art from royalty to the marketplace. Labels have no business setting themselves up as arbiters of what art can and can’t be made.

Happy Dean Grey Tuesday. Up yours, Warners. Link

Update: Matt cooked up this sweet Dalek/Warner lawyer graphic in honor of the day.

Here are a three more cool mashups for your listening pleasure. 🙂

The Kleptones – A Night at the Hip Hopera
Various Artisits – llegal Art
Various DJs – Flip the Swtich (Chemical Brothers Remixed)

I’ve added a button to my left sidebar with a link pointing to Banned Music. They have links to other mashups (like the infamous "Grey Album"). Check it out.

Absolut Bull$#!%

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absolut-corruption-2politicaljunkies.JPGI’m a big fan and supporter of parody and I loathe petty litigation. The image posted here is brought to you by the fine folks at 2 Political Junkies. I’m not associated with them, by the way. The reason I have my own copy of the image is just in case they have to take it down for legal reasons. Ya see, apparently the owners of Absolut Vodka, V&S, don’t get the joke. They’ve asked 2 Political Junkies to take down the image.

"A lawyer for Absolut’s owners, V&S, e-mailed Lupinacci Nov. 14, saying the parody infringes on Absolut’s copyright and trademark, and requested it be immediately removed. The firm’s policy is to stay away from political statements of any kind, attorney Jenny Bergquist wrote, and ‘you are using the Absolut trademark in order to promote your political message.’"

So much for free speech and protection of parody.

"Although a parody can be considered a derivative work under United States Copyright Law it can be protected under the fair use of 17 USC � 107. In 2001, the federal Court of Appeals, 11th District in Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin upheld the right of Alice Randall to publish a parody of Gone with the Wind called The Wind Done Gone, which told the same story from the point of view of Scarlett O’Hara’s slaves, who were glad to be rid of her. See also the Supreme Court of the United States case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music regarding the song Oh, Pretty Woman."

In particular, parody advertisements are legally protected.

Unless and until lawyers start breathing down my neck, I’ll be keeping this image up. Welcome to America, V&S, land of free speech and home of fair use. Get bent!

P.S. I agree with the commenters who want a version for Democrats, too. Come to think of it, in response to V&S’s petty behavior, a parody of them in the same vein might be appropriate. 😉

P.P.S. Someone please hit this guy with a cluebat/LART/mallet o’ understanding.

This Song is My Song

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I’m sure by now most have heard that the hilarious JibJab parody of “This Land”
by Woody Guthrie is under
attack from the copyright owners of the latter.

BoingBoing has added an interesting twist to the debate. ‘Twould seem good ol’ Guthrie
wasn’t
particularly anal about copyrights himself.

Fair Use

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I’m not a fan of government-imposed censorship and I believe that parents should
take a more active role in what their children watch on TV and movies.

Hollywood is trying on multiple
fronts
to eradicate customers’ fair
use rights. One of their targets is parent’s right to control what his children
watch.

Several months ago, a new
DVD player debuted which would permit the user to “automatically
skip sexual
content, graphically violent scenes and language deemed offensive”.
Directors are furious and Hollywood wants these machines off the market. If you’d
like to see ClearPlay-enabled
players, like RCA’s DRC232N back
on the market and protected in the future, please sign the Grassfire
Family Movie Act petition.