Slashdot Mirror
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."
Anti-property, anti-government... and they're worried that a satire aimed at Bush/Kerry will "damage" this "icon of americana"?? This is what the original folk music was all about! It seems to me that the copyright holders are just looking for an excuse to come down on these people. I doubt Woodie Guthrie would have approved the suit...
(PS. Just to be clear, I love this song - in its entirety - and was listening to it last week during a drive across the U.S. I wish the original message wasn't getting so lost...)
What does someone like Weird Al Yankovich do? Does he pay the copyright holders for the songs he parodies? Seems like whatever applies to W.A.Y. applies here.
Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
What's important in this case is that is clearly political speech, and the Courts have time and time again give much more freedom to political speech than any other. Political speech is what is most protected by the first ammendment, because it keeps a free government free.
The difference is that parody makes fun of the original work that the work is derived from; satire is a derivative work that makes fun of something else. Parody is protected, satire is not fair use.
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. Thus, I don't think it's legal, but I'm only a law intern.
I'm not saying that I like the conclusion, however.
Satire has a near and dear place in many people's hearts just as a coping mechanism with all of the crazy stuff happening in the news. Take it away, and we go back to rioting. That's how it works
I are winner
This is what happens when artists sell the rights to their work for a buck or two. Got a problem with the RIAA, MPAA etc, talk to the stupid artists who are having caviar dreams and champagne wishes.
As scripture says, you cannot serve two masters.
The point is, artists are in complete control UNTIL the moment they worry about $$ instead of art. Most artists are too stupid to understand this concept. It is easier to blame the "Big Corporations" for their own ignornace.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Woody_Guthrie
"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."
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
I swear, I've seen the entire flash three times now thanks to the repeat airings on the news. Would anybody have gotten their undies in a twist if the animation had been something completely forgettable on Newgrounds.com?
Wonderful quote and link. I think it says everything. W.G. was an Open Source original.
They're probably making fun of Bush, not Woody Guthrie. They're just using Woody Guthrie's song to enhance their parody. Penny arcade had a simular problem when they did a comic about "American McGee's Strawberry Shortcake". Actually, Penny Arcade might have been able to win that case (the commic had Strawberry dolled up like a Dominatrix, and you could argue they where making fun of her overly sweet image by showing her in that light). Now, I haven't seen this flash, but I'm guessing it in no way makes fun of Folk songs/signers.
Now, the irony is having a champion of the little guy (Woody Guthrie), having his works controled by large corporations. Gotta love it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Woody would have loved it!
.... its freedom of speech but only when you say what I want to hear.....
How can anyone say the song wasn't making fun of the original? By changing the lyrics and making about something else, it *is* a parody. It takes the original "this land is your land, this land is my land" and pokes fun at it ... sure sounds like a parody to me.
Besides, wasn't the original just a song and not a flash animation/video? SO, let a blind guy listen to the song and then to the "parody" in question and ask him if it's making fun of the original... if that guy happens to be a judge, end of case.
FLR
This log is your log
This log is my log
When lightning struck it
It kicked the bucket!
I poured some onions
Inside my trousers
This log, it used to be a tree
Now it spreads love to you and me
Hey look, it's headed out to sea!
Don't Tread on Me
Political satire now has to be hosted outside the US because of stupid laws.
The copyright on this song should have expired years ago. I hope Congress is proud of itself.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Can't it be both? It's satirizing the elections by using a parody of the song.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
What is pretty obvious, Mr. "Ergo Ipso Facto", is that you didn't RTFA, and that you are talking out of your ass. The JibJab video takes every value that the original "This Land is My Land" enshrines and corrupts them to mean the opposite. Whether or not vector by which this is done is through political commentary is irrelevant, because ultimately the JibJab video makes a sham of "This Land is My Land", and is thus a parody.
The mods must be hitting the $2 crack today. The only reason this was modded up was because the author said "Ergo Ipso Facto". Where in the moderation guidelines does it say to award +1 for each latin word used?
?-|||-----x<*))))><
You have a mistaken idea of what parody is. Parody does not only mean "make fun of a work of art". Here is a discussion of parody and fair use. http://www.publaw.com/parody.html
...and, lo and behold, it is no longer available at the linspire site.
You can see that setting new lyrics to a copyrighted tune for the purpose of making social commentary would fall within the bounds of fair use--- particularly if it can be demonstrated that financial gain is not a primary objective. I think the recent Linspire advertisement http://www.linspire.com/RunLinspireFlash.php which is a flash animation and lyrics set to a Doors tune-- although they claim to be a parody-- would have a harder time showing fair use, because it is clearly intended to sell a product.
And I'm sure it's been remarked elsewhere in this thread: making up new lyrics to old tunes is very much a part of the folk tradition that Woody Guthrie operated in.
Not so fast. The primary intent was to make political satire. However, this song was chosen specifically to contrast the political status with the message of the song. As well, the song often used to promote patriotism by those running, and running for, government despite the fact that it is very anti-government.
If they had just picked a random song, you'd probably be right. But because of the specifics of the contrast between the original song message, current political status, and typical use of the song by government, it seems to be very much a parody. IANAL, but I think there's a solid argument there for parody. AFAIK, the parody doesn't have to be the primary intent of the song to make it fair use.
If Guthrie was willing to sell his rights -- and no one could get 'em otherwise -- then that's the end of his involvement.
Actually Guthrie is dead so whatever rights he might or might not have to the music would have reverted to his heirs, whoever they were possibly people chosen by the state if he died without a will.
So Guthrie might never have sold the rights to this song - but they could have been sold to whomever brought the suit - and this is possibly or even probably against the artist's (Guthrie's) intent - by the heirs either in the will or appointed by the state because the artist, Guthrie, wasn't clear enough (legally) that he was releasing these songs to the public domain.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Met her at the door
With a loaded 44
And she ain't my teacher no more!
Nowadays, songs like these get you expelled under "zero tolerance" policies. Hell, I remember when we did the Christmas gift exchange, I brought a cap gun. The lucky bastard who drew my number was the "cop" that day during the playground game of "cops and robbers." Nobody, teachers included, said jack. Try to imagine how many people would wet their pants, not even at the sound of a cap gun on a playground, but at the very fact that a crude facsimile of a pistol was on school grounds at all.
I worry that we're teaching kids how to appreciate a totalitarian society, and worse, that some people are happy about it.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
That's what I call staying power.
If you truly have "artistic interests" I would think that you would kno who the hell Woody Guthrie was, what he stood for and what his music means.
Considering that you are posting as AC, I have to assume, however, that you are nothing more than a very large bag of wind...
Much has been said about Guthrie's standard copyright notice to do whatever you want with his music, but I haven't read anything yet about the "folk process" to which Guthrie and his contemporaries such as Pete Seeger (who was in the folk group "The Weavers" and is still alive) depended on.
What was the folk process?
In short, it was the age-old practice Guthrie and others used of taking old music and writing new words. Just like a folk-tale is a story that has been told and changed as time goes on.
When the Weavers took [Guthrie's] 'So Long (It's Been Good To Know Yuh)' into the pop charts '51, the song had been written originally to cheer up migrant workers, adapted as a patriotic war song and as a jingle for selling pipe tobacco; far from being outraged, Woody was there in the studio, helping the Weavers adapt it yet again: 'For better or worse,' wrote Colin Irwin in Mojo '97, 'this was the folk process at work.'
As Seeger says,
"My father was more sensible. He said to think of the folk process as something that has gone on through the ages. The folk process occurs in cooking, with cooks rearranging recipes. And lawyers rearrange old laws to fit new citizens. If you look at it this way, then the true importance of folk music is to let ordinary folks change things."
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I was a republican until about 2 years ago, then the idiot puppet George Bush took over along with Cheney and the rest of my idiot party refused to repudiate the idiot Bush and his thieving cabinet.
Its sickening.
So yes, I think right now the republicans would push killing babies if it benefitted their friends in big business.
I'm not a democrat either. as I've hit middle age, I realize both parties are full of shit, and it sickens me that I was so stupid to fall for their little taglines and mindless saying. God, I was a bigger idiot, than our stupid, mononic, idiotic president Bush.
At this point, I view a vote for Bush as proof that people have cloth for brains.
Huh? I'm much more inclined to believe that the definition of satire applies.
One entry found for satire.
1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn
Yup, it's ridiculing the low intellectual level of the presidential debate thus far.
2 : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly
I'd say it's exposing the folly that is this presidential election.
Main Entry: parody
1 : a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule
Yes, the tune is imitated, but what I get from this definition is that the point of the imitation is to make fun of the author or work. This is clearly not the case here.
2 : a feeble or ridiculous imitation
Same as above.
Either way, it's hard to say that the definition of satire clearly does not apply, as you did.