Parody or Satire? Threat To Sue JibJab

The Importance of writes "Internet multimedia producers JibJab have been getting a lot of attention recently for their version of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" that pokes fun at Bush, Kerry and America in general. Now, JibJab is being threatened with a copyright lawsuit by the rights holders. They've already contacted EFF and there is an ongoing debate about whether the flash animation is protected parody or infringing satire."

Comments

Re:Precedents?

[tepples]

What does someone like Weird Al Yankovich do? Does he pay the copyright holders for the songs he parodies?

Yes.

Woody Guthrie on Copyright

[bfields]

From www.woodyguthrie.com, quoting Pete Seeger:

When Woody Guthrie was singing hillbilly songs on a little Los Angeles radio station in the late 1930s, he used to mail out a small mimeographed songbook to listeners who wanted the words to his songs, On the bottom of one page appeared the following: "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do." W.G.

Whoever wound up with the rights to his music has, I suspect, a rather different view of things.

--Bruce Fields

Re:Woody Guthrie on Copyright

[Requiem Aristos]

Don't forget, copyright is currently life+75, which means something written in 1918 could easily stay out of the public domain for a number of decades.

Quoting from http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-3/753-5.html

[1.]According to the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers' ("ASCAP") electronic search database, ACE, ASCAP owns the copyrights to "God Bless America," written by Irving Berlin and "Puff The Magic Dragon," written by Peter Yarrow. ASCAP's Ace on the Web (visited Mar. 10, 1997) . In order to allow access to information on copyrighted songs, ASCAP has designed a searchable database, called ACE on the Web, located at http://www.ascap.com/ace/ACE.html. Other popular and commonly performed compositions like "Happy Birthday," "Kumbaya" and "On Top of Old Smokey" are also listed in this database.

Woody's estate probably has a case

[DavidBrown]

I've seen Jib-Jab's song, which is a very clever and well-done piece of bipartisan fun. The problem though, is that parody can't use an entire work - either all the words or all the melody or both. Appropriating the entire song and changing some of the lyrics goes beyond the normal bounds of fair use. It's why Weird Al Yankovic gets the copyright holder's permission before publishing his parody songs, and it's why Mad Magazine sets limits to the song parodys it publishes.

Of course, the present copyright holders of "This Land is Our Land" are still being dickheads.

Re:Precedents?

[SoCalChris]

Reread the page you linked to. It doesn't say anywhere that he pays the copyright holders. It only says that he voluntarily asks for permission from the original artist before doing a parody.

Does Al get permission to do his parodies?

Al does get permission from the original writers of the songs that he parodies. While the law supports his ability to parody without permission, he feels it's important to maintain the relationships that he's built with artists and writers over the years. Plus, Al wants to make sure that he gets his songwriter credit (as writer of new lyrics) as well as his rightful share of the royalties.

Re:Did they listen to the original?

[tverbeek]

lyrics from Guthrie's original manuscript

Re:satire vs. parody

[ktheory]

It's pretty clear that the flash animation in question does not make fun of the actual song, but rather the presidential candidates and America in general.

I disagree. The original song is about America in general. It addressed social and political issues such as land ownership and welfare. Read the lyrics.

The Jib Jab song features the two presidential candidates, but also Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger--singing Guthrie's original line "From California, to the New York Island". It also has the Native American being overshadowed by huge shopping centers. And there are the generalizations about the economic classes that Kerry and Bush represent, different attitudes towards war, etc.

In short, the Jib Jab song is not just about Kerry and Bush, but it's a parady of American culture, just as Guthrie's original was a critique of American culture. Since the Jib Jab song addresses the original content of the work, it is fair use.

Watch/download without the ad

[johnlcallaway]

What a freakin riot. It's refreshing to find someone that can poke the appropriate amount of fun at both parties without getting too wrapped up any moore.

The swf file can be found here so you don't have to deal with the ads and can save it on your own drive. Show the corporate types what the Internet is all about, sharing.

Re:Did they listen to the original?

[cdrudge]

Exactly right except for maybe the part about the lawsuit. From his FAQ:

Does Al get permission to do his parodies?
Al does get permission from the original writers of the songs that he parodies. While the law supports his ability to parody without permission, he feels it's important to maintain the relationships that he's built with artists and writers over the years. Plus, Al wants to make sure that he gets his songwriter credit (as writer of new lyrics) as well as his rightful share of the royalties.

What about Coolio? I heard that he was upset with Al about "Amish Paradise." That was a very unfortunate case of misunderstanding between Al's people and Coolio's people. Short version of the story: Al recorded "Amish Paradise" after being told by his record label that Coolio had given his permission for the parody. When Al's album came out, Coolio publicly contended that he had never given his blessing, and that he was in fact very offended by the song. To this day we're not exactly sure who got their facts wrong, but Al sincerely apologizes to Coolio for the misunderstanding.