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Jonathan Coulton Song Used By Glee Without Permission
FunPika writes "Jonathan Coulton, who is known for songs such as "Code Monkey", is claiming that his cover of "Baby Got Back" was used without permission on Glee, a television show aired by Fox Broadcasting Company. When the Glee version appeared on YouTube last week, Coulton suspected that it sounded similar to his cover, and several of his fans confirmed this by analyzing the two tracks. Despite Coulton contacting Fox, they continued with airing the episode and have placed the song on sale in iTunes."
What, did anyone think that copyright was intended to protect anyone except the rich and powerful?
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interesting to see how a joe average gets smacked down like a gnat with a buick on youtube, but then we see the exact opposite here? Or didn't they file a takedown notice?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
specifically, the license Jonathan Coulton uses, allows for noncommercial use. Anyone want to argue that this is non-commercial use?
What Glee released is not a "cover." It actually samples his recording. If they'd re-recorded all the instrumental parts in the exact style that JoCo arranged them, they'd be in the clear. But they didn't. They sang, karaoke-style, over his instrumental recordings.
From your link:
(If Glee's producers used clips of Coulton's actual recording, like the duck sound, it's different: that would be copyright infringement of his sound recording.)
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Yes, he did a cover. However, he did a specific arrangement of the song that the show took as their own. From the opening chorus to the way the guitar is played, it's the same arrangement of Baby Got Back. I have a feeling that the music arranger for the show might be let go for getting credit where credit wasn't due.
It also notes that JoCo has posted that that happened:
What's more, Coulton also believes that Glee's music directors also illegally sampled his version, noting specifically that the sound of a duck quacking...
and then it goes on, undaunted by that detail, to talk about the legal ramifications of JoCo's claim assuming that the above is false, even though it gives absolutely no reason to doubt that it is true.
https://soundcloud.com/alacrion/joco-v-glee Here is a demonstration of the claim's truth. Now, like, let's keep on talking about why JoCo's legal claim has no merit in some other hypothetical universe where the Glee people actually went to the trouble of re-recording it, even though they didn't in this universe.
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FTFY.
A cover is a derivative work. It is covered by copyright to the extent that it contains new, original creative expression above and beyond the original work. So to say that "it's not really covered by copyright law" is pretty much completely wrong unless the cover sounds almost exactly like the original, which his cover clearly does not. At all.
Oh, his melody is most assuredly covered by copyright. Unquestionably. Anyone who says otherwise is either deliberately lying or knows nothing whatsoever about copyright law. It's an independent musical expression sufficient to be protected on its own by copyright if not combined with those lyrics. Therefore, it is protected just the same as any other artistic creation. If Fox really stole his original melody, and continued to use it even after having been informed that their use was not authorized, that meets the criteria for willful infringement. I believe the words "treble damages" come to mind.
Based on what I'm reading, it sounds like Fox isn't remotely on the right side of the law here. I would strongly urge Mr. Coulton to contact a lawyer who specializes in copyright cases. What Fox's lawyers are telling him is complete bulls**t, and they're pretty much pissing their pants hoping he doesn't sue, because they have a pretty good idea how many figures they'll lose if he does.
I would also strongly urge Mr. Coulton to file a proper takedown request with Apple. This forces Fox to put all their cards on the table, and gives them notice that you intend to take action if they don't come to a reasonable settlement. It also takes their content off of iTunes for at least a few days, during which they're losing a metric f**kton of sales. This has a tendency to force their lawyers to take your claims seriously, where they otherwise might not.
That said, IANAL, and this is not legal advice except for the the "you should contact a copyright lawyer" bit.
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We aren't talking about someone doing a 'similar' cover, we are talking about Fox, by all appearances, using his Karaoke track verbatim against his license and singing over it. Hell, even the lyrics kept "Johnny C's in trouble" instead of the original lyrics. Analysis suggests they even had to work a bit to try to edit out a duck quack from his track, but still left some sign of that quack behind.
In fact, reports are that the show lifts a *lot* of differently done arrangements of well known songs done by obscure people without permission without a shred of apologetic tone or credit given.
But at least it is equal opportunity, a fair number of more well known musicians whose songs have been featured aren't exactly pleased to hear their works crop up in that show either.
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A show with a reported 3.5 million dollar an episode budget can't even be arsed to let artists know their stuff is going to be used....
All of these people being stolen from would be content with so little as an off-screen credit through some blog post or something. If they wanted to be decent human beings, they would have thrown in an on-screen one liner mentioning the names of the people that are actually responsible for the arrangements, rather than trying to perpetuate the lie that the people behind that show have even an ounce of original musical talent.
All this stuff they could have done without spending so much as a dime...
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What Glee released is not a "cover." It actually samples his recording.
And Coulton's version isn't just a cover either. If you listen to the Sir Mix-a-Lot version and then to the Coulton version, Coulton's puts the lyrics to a melody that wasn't there in the original rap song. Coulton owns the copyright of this melody.
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Listen to the Soundcloud link I posted. Use headphones. This is not a hyper-accurate note-for-note cover. If it were that, there would be all sorts of stereo phasing wildness going on in your ears, because they would be all confused by the Haas effect. That is not going on because the instrumentals are the same instrumental.
http://s9.postimage.org/qq104s1zh/joco_glee_comparison.gif
Here is a spectrogram comparison I made from the first 15 seconds of each song, starting from the attack of the second 'clap' sample. They're not identical obviously, owing to different mastering and compression on the tracks, in addition to the differing vocal performances going on over top. But, the spectral components they share in common are clear. If you look at that clap sample by itself, before the vocals and other instrumentation start up, they are obviously the same sample.
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This was a triumph.
You could at least have used the first post to point out that this is the artist who wrote and performed "Still Alive" from the video game Portal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI
Not sure how this wasn't in TFS.
What would be even more convincing would be reversing the phase of one and summing them. ...
However, while the phasing effect from such a recording would pop out at you, if you have good stereoscopic hearing this is just as convincing: The instrumental is heard at the center, one lyric performance on the left, the other on the right. If the instrumentals were a cover rather than phase-identical they'd be heard as a "chorus" - unison performances - by two guitars, one on each side.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
They stole Greg Laswell's arrangement of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" about a year ago.
http://www.pleasewelcomeyourjudges.com/2011/11/greg-laswell-not-glee-ful-about.html
Perhaps because Coulton was noted on Slashdot long before he wrote songs for Valve.
I never said that they are infringing. I merely said that they are derivative works. Whether they are infringing or not depends on whether you have a license (whether compulsory or otherwise). If they were not derivative works, you wouldn't need a license.
Also, compulsory licensing is basically irrelevant here. Fox doesn't have a compulsory license for his music. Nobody does compulsory licensing when distributing something to millions of people. Glee has an average of something like 9 million viewers, so that would cost them the better part of a million bucks in compulsory licensing fees. Major labels and TV networks and the like always negotiate a much lower rate than the statutory rate, or else they don't use your music.
I never said otherwise. Please reread what I said. The recording is entitled to copyright protection as a recording, in that the recording itself is an artistic work above and beyond the original. However, because it is a derivative work, the copyright protection extends only to changed elements (which includes the recording itself, by virtue of the fact that it isn't the original recording).
However, if I create a cover of a song and then somebody else does a cover of a song, and if we both imitate something that is present in the original recording, I can't sue over it, because the original recording holds copyright over that element, and mine does not. Not that this has any relevance in this particular case, of course. And that is what I mean when I say that copyright covers only changed elements.
No, that's only part of it. The issue is that Mr. Coulton's "cover" set a rap song to music that did not exist in the original work. Therefore, the music itself has a copyright separate and independent from the recording. So if they used the music, that's a copyright, violation, and if they used the actual recording, that's a second copyright violation.
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Jonathan Coulton is a member of the geek community with honors. He's given to us often, and freely.
I hope someone with lawyer skills steps up to help pay back the debt. Let me know where I can donate.
The Glee version shows characteristic loss of data above 16k -- this was ripped from an mp3 or other lossy format at some point.
That would be $150 000 per infringement times 6 million viewers, but it might just be per track not per downloaded copy. That single mom had to pay ~$35 000 per track, and it mention that people settle at $3 500 per track.
The in-game version was sung by Ellen McLain, but JoCo sang on the Portal Soundtrack. Here's one of his versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxNmeMklFk8