Pa... ro... dy?

Under The Bridge: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos

I've never heard of "Literal Videos" until about half an hour ago, and became an instant fan. Sadly, the reason I heard of DustFilms and this wonderful work of media genius was because of this piece of news from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Literal Videos is the creating of Dustin McLean, now hosted on the comedy web site Funny Or Die, and thank god, because they're too great to lose over a WMG tantrum. The videos are pretty much the same you've seen on MTV (when it used to actually show music videos), but with a new set of lyrics: the specific description of what's happening on screen.

The idea it's so simple, yet so creative; WMG doesn't like creative people, as one look at their list of signed artists would tell us; they claimed copyright on two videos: Under The Bridge and Take On Me.

The problem is, these videos are clear parodies. Again the long corporate arm completely ignores the Fair Use clause while bitching and whining at the same time about the users' complete disreagard for copyright laws. They're huffin' and puffin' trying to eliminate any evidence of their music from YouTube, which will have devastating results for both the record label and the video website. And as for the users? They'll just pick up their stuff and move on to a different site.

Links:
DustFilms website.
DustFilms' "Funny Or Die" channel.
DustFilms' YouTube channel.

This is that video

In this video, we see a young child who's just learning to walk while being filmed by his mother who then uploaded the video to YouTube to show her family and friends. That's it. No editing. No music added in post-production. However, that did not stop the ever-watching eye of the Universal Music Group music police and actually claimed copyright infringement on it for the Prince song playing in the background. Fortuatelly, Stephanie Lenz, the owner of the video sued UMG with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the video went back up on YouTube. While her case is still ongoing, the judge did say that UMG and other copyright holders should consider fair use before sending a takedown notice.

I'm posting it now to make a point: this is how far these companies, such as UMG or WMG (Warner Music Group) are willing to go. Right now, they're claiming copyright infringement over the videos we make of ourselves playing covers from our living rooms or bedrooms. But, if we let them get away with that, and without shame, they'll claim copyright over your home movies and even videos of your kids learning how to walk.

And then, what's next?

Lenz v. Universal article

Associated Press vs. Chris Fairey over famous Obama 'HOPE' image

These people have no shame. This image of Barack Obama was seen everywhere during the last months of 2008, and became one of the most important images of, at least, the 21st century when he was elected as President of the United States. The famous "HOPE" image was done by a Calfornia street artist named Chris Fairey, but it was not done from scratch. Inspired by Obama's campaign, Chris found a photograph by Manny Garcia, from AP, and transformed it into the image we all recognize today.

Now the campaign is over and Chris Fairy is getting a law suit threat by AP for copyright infringement!:

"The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission," said Paul Colford, AP's director of media relations taken from an article by Lewis Wallace for wired.com.

Fairy's lawyer is using our new two favorite words in the English Dictionary: Fair Use. It really does not take a lot of brain cells to figure out Fairy's work is completely transformative and it follows the Fair Use guidelines; he has not made a cent from the famous poster.

Now Fairy has counter-attacked AP. According to this article by David Kravets for wired.com, on Monday, Fairy "filed a preemptive lawsuit claiming he did not violate The Associated Press's intellectual property rights."

The lengths some people are willing to go for money or recognition is unbelievable. We can only hope the Fair Use clause gets more specific over time, so that no one with a little bit of power abuses copyright laws and demands "compensation" just because somebody else's work was better than their original efforts.

Read the Lewis Wallace article.
Read the David Kravets article.