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JibJab Wins - 'This Land' is Public Domain
The Importance of writes "JibJab, creators of the hilarious parody of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land is Your Land' featuring Pres. Bush and Sen. Kerry, were first threatened with a lawsuit and then, with the help of EFF, went to court first in a pre-emptive strike. Well, EFF discovered that the song has actually been in the public domain since 1973 because it was first published in a songbook [PDF] in 1945 and the copyright was never renewed. The case has now been settled. Here are some addtional links."
...it would be cheapened if they played a video parodying it constantly on MTV.
MTV plays videos? It must be nice to live in your country.
In the U.S. of A., MTV (Music Television) doesn't play music. Just crappy pre-scripted "reality" shows. VH1 used to be the only place you could see music videos (the slogan was even "Music First"). Now they're all full of game shows, and bogus "documentaries." Then all that was left was MTV2. But even recently I've noticed they're picking up the MTV show leftovers.
So, where to get videos? Several years ago I had a cable system that carried MuchMusic, and that had videos. But my current setup doesn't offer it. Guess I'll have to download them off some P2P server.
MTV made me a criminal.
World's tallest building rises in the desert