Parody or Satire? Threat To Sue JibJab 710
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."
Pretty obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
remember hamster dance (Score:3, Interesting)
What the hell? (Score:3, Interesting)
"The damage to the song is huge"? I'll never understand these idiots. It's as if they assume that because somebody heard a menial representation of a very well known song in a little cartoon being distributed via the Internet that they're immediately going to think that the original work is bad/political/evil/whatever.
That JibJab parody was hilarious. If anybody should be getting pissed, it should be the Native Americans because of that bit at the end of the song (go ahead and hold your breath, I'm sure it won't be long before they jump on).
Re:satire vs. parody (Score:2, Interesting)
Folkways here we go... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sold out for a buck (Score:5, Interesting)
"Sometimes your wealth of ignorance is astounds me"
and to quote 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."
Re:Sold out for a buck (Score:5, Interesting)
Insolence. The original copyright notice attached to This Land is Your Land ( and several other Guthries, iirc ) reads as follows:
"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."
Your bullshit about caviar dreams and champagne wishes is poorly placed against a man who loved his fellow americans, loved the free flow of information, mailed lyrics booklets to his listeners and invited them to sing his songs, and died wretchedly in a state hospital of an irreversible degenerative nerve disorder. Learn your history.
Re:Did they listen to the original? (Score:4, Interesting)
After Woody became famous (and thus his songs worth money) Ludlow Music unleashed its lawyers to have them withdrawn from the public domain.
Is this a great country or what?
It's also an often parodied song already. I like the Israeli version myself:
This land is your land
This land is my land
From the Arab border
To the Arab border
From the Arab border
To the Arab border
This land was made for you and me
This "icon of Americana" was also part of what got Woody labled a communist. Go figure.
KFG
Re:Woody Guthrie on Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Parody vs. Satire unimportant (Score:4, Interesting)
free speech zone
Re:Did they listen to the original? (Score:5, Interesting)
"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."
Just further evidence of how messed up copyright laws are. The person whose rights are allegedly being protected here is the last person who'd want them protected like this.
Re:Take it easy...but take it! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Woody Guthrie on Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
The copyright creator is Congress. The creator of the WORK sold his rights -- he's out of the picture. I mean no one cares what Shakespeare thinks about staging his plays; why should we? If Guthrie was willing to sell his rights -- and no one could get 'em otherwise -- then that's the end of his involvement. If authors want to keep a hand in, that's their problem, and they shouldn't sell their rights if that's what they want.
I would also try to convince a jury that the song is in the public domain. After call can you find 12 people who can name the author of that song?
Well, it's not. I suppose a jury could nullify or something, but it's really not in the public domain, and popular belief alone don't make it so. Get that popular belief to change the laws, and then we'll be cooking with gas.
Its clear that even congress seems to think many songs are in the public domain after their singing God Bless America on the steps without paying royalties based on performance with a billion viewers of news programs world wide.
God Bless America IS in the public domain, IIRC, having been written in 1918.
Would a reasonable person assume that Happy Birthday is in the public domain?
Dunno. But they'd be wrong unless they got the laws changed. Which I'd likely support.
Woody Guthrie might have had a different view... (Score:3, Interesting)
"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."
No, it's not, look in the dictionary (Score:3, Interesting)
One entry found for satire. : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly
Main Entry: satire
Pronunciation: 'sa-"tIr
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin satura, satira, perhaps from (lanx) satura dish of mixed ingredients, from feminine of satur well-fed; akin to Latin satis enough -- more at SAD
1
2
synonym see WIT
None of that applies to this situation. Here's parody [m-w.com]:
Main Entry: 1parody : a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule : a feeble or ridiculous imitation
Pronunciation: 'par-&-dE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -dies
Etymology: Latin parodia, from Greek parOidia, from para- + aidein to sing -- more at ODE
1
2
Clearly in this case, the definition for parody applies. This case is completely without merit.
Re:Did they listen to the original? (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, Woodie Guthrie was a communist so I hardly feel he could be considered anti-government; he was just anti-capitalist. And there's plenty of irony to go around---Irving Berlin and his family barely escaped Soviet persecution of the Jews with their lives. Woodie Guthrie had nothing but contempt for tin pan alley songwriters, feeling they were out of touch with reality and the common man. Tin pan alley song writers got rich because they knew what the common man liked to hear.
I don't idealize people because of their magnificent talent. Guthrie was one of the greatest craftsmen of words this country ever produced, but he was also kind of an arrogant jerk so it's not altogether completely unlikely that he would have disapproved of this lawsuit.
Pop open a dictionary sometimes people! (Score:2, Interesting)
Ripped from my other post in a reply to a troll:
Definition of Satire [m-w.com] according to m-w.com:
One entry found for satire. : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly
Main Entry: satire
Pronunciation: 'sa-"tIr
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin satura, satira, perhaps from (lanx) satura dish of mixed ingredients, from feminine of satur well-fed; akin to Latin satis enough -- more at SAD
1
2
synonym see WIT
None of that applies to this situation. Here's parody [m-w.com]:
Main Entry: 1parody : a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule : a feeble or ridiculous imitation
Pronunciation: 'par-&-dE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -dies
Etymology: Latin parodia, from Greek parOidia, from para- + aidein to sing -- more at ODE
1
2
Clearly in this case, the definition for parody applies. This case is completely without merit.
Re:Sold out for a buck (Score:1, Interesting)
Misuse of copyrights (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure you go ahead and copy this post. (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, IANAL.
Sure you go ahead and copy this post.
Re:Did they listen to the original? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know how to classify Bush Jr. Honestly, he scares the crap out of me. His attempts to force the government to define love, an uneducated (and religious based) ban on stem cell research that is choking Americas participation in modern medicine, his staff and other government appointments, and the many questionable ties to corporate interests and the many executive decisions that favor them, all force me to question his commitment to humanity. During his first run for office he billed himself as a compassionate conservative. If the last 4 years have shown anything, it's that his definition of 'compassionate' is seriously flawed.
I'm still unsure of what the true definition of conservative is. What are we losing that people are so concerned about saving. I know it's not the environment. To me, conservatives are afraid of change, or at least rapid change. Everyone I've met has quoted some nonsense about a return to 'the good old days' while the time they reminisce about was 'good' only to white, middle class males.
Neither party is better or worse than the other. To beleive otherwise demonstrates how fooled the American public is when it comes to choosing the lesser of 2 evils to govern us all.
RTFWAYFAQ (Score:2, Interesting)
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. (emphasis added)
Re:Did they listen to the original? (Score:5, Interesting)
The song was written in 1940.[1] Guthrie died in 1967.[2] Because copyright registration -- and that's what this is -- only lasted 28 years, it had to be re-registered. Registration could only be done within 6 months of the expiration date, IIRC. That would mean it was re-registered by Guthrie's heirs in 1968 and not Guthrie.
He also didn't give up or license away his rights to the song for more than 28 years -- copyright law didn't let him. After the initial term, all rights reverted to him or his heirs. His heirs renewed it. Maybe not what he would have wanted, but it was their choice.
The upshot is: lay off Guthrie, and stick it to his progeny.
IANAL...y.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Land_is_Your_La
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie [wikipedia.org]
Re:Sold out for a buck (Way OT) (Score:3, Interesting)
If I could play guitar, I'd have a favorite Pete story reference written on it: "This too shall pass."
(One version of Pete's story, paraphrased, and probably protected under Fair Use:
A benevolent king wants to pass on all good knowledge to his children, so calls together his wise men and women to write it into a book. A year later, they present him with a book six inches thick.
"Too long," he says, after reading it. "I need a single sentence that conveys all of this."
Five years later they come back. The sentence is "This too shall pass."
"Excellent," he says, and has it carved on all the lintels of the kingdom. "Still, it'd be nice if we could have it in a single word."
Twenty years pass. The king is on his death-bed, when the wise folk come back and give him the word: "maybe."
Hundreds of years later, some people are trekking through a sandy wasteland. They come across some scattered stone fragments, one of which having "oo shall pa" carved in it. They ponder this briefly, and walk on.
)
Re:Did they listen to the original? (Score:1, Interesting)
(1) Woody can be heard singing the "private property" verse on the Smithsonian Folkways release, "This Land Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1 [amazon.com]". It's track #14.
(2) The irony of the Native American singing "This land was my land," with the response line, "But now it's our land," is sharp and poignant commentary on the original song, easily qualifying it as a parody. It's an angle I've thought of when hearing Woody claim the land for many, many years.
Re:Sold out for a buck (Score:2, Interesting)
Disney didn't distribute Fahrenheit 9/11 because they have a policy not to publish political movies (this has been different in past decades).
Hurts the original? More like helps (Score:1, Interesting)
If you ask me, this parody only makes the message of the original song more poignant. Instead of "this land belonging to you and me" the parody says "Screw America. This land belongs to the politicians!" And that gives me plenty of reason to appreciate the message of the original song and hope it can come true some day.
Re:Did they listen to the original? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Ludlow Music unleashed its lawyers to have them withdrawn from the public domain."
If that's true that's theft and stealing from _everyone_ too.
They have no case...here's the law on the subject (Score:5, Interesting)
The case that recently decided this issue on the federal level was SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co. It's the case where the estate of Margaret Mitchell, the author of "Gone With The Wind" went after Alice Randall, author of "The Wind Done Gone" for copyright infringement. The case claimed that it was illegal for Alice Randall to take the story and characters of Gone With The Wind, put it in a blender and use them to make a new story that made a social and political statement.
The SunTrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co. case was first affirmed for the plantiff but was overturned on appeal. The issues of that case aren't any different from this potential case. Can parody be defined as making a political satire or statement? Is it legal to take an entire previous work and use the characters and places and story line to make your own case for such parody?
The reason I know about all of this is because it is very personal to me. Alice Randall is my sister-in-law. And in the end, the plantiff not only lost the case, but decided to contribute to charities dear to the defendant.
You can read the case yourself. But if I were the holders of the Woody Guthrie copyright, I would read this case carefully and choose not to file. Because I guarentee that the defense will be using this case as the cornerstone of their argument.
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/suntrust/wdg
Re:Did they listen to the original? (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't think he (Weird Al) slipped up, Coolio's people didn't tell him that they had given permission to Weird Al.
Re:Did they listen to the original? (Score:2, Interesting)
I voted for Nader last time and my state's tally still came out clearly in favor of Gore. All I did was stand up and be counted. If Nader hadn't run, I would have voted for Bush.
I'll vote Nader again without helping Bush because there's no way in hell that Kerry will lose MA.
Nader isn't the spoiler. It's the other two.
Re:Sold out for a buck (Score:5, Interesting)
Who can forget other such people? For example, Emma Lazarus. Author of the infamous "Give me your tired, your poor..." lines, she was an avowed supporter of socialist tax policies, and spent her efforts trying to increase government support of the poor and be a voice for women's rights.
Or how about Katherine Lee Bates, author of "America The Beautiful"? She wrote about the beautiful and spacious skies while living with her same-sex partner, Katherine Coman (an economist who wrote the first significant published work on the economy of the old west). After Coman died, Bates wrote an entire volume of poetry - Yellow Clover - dedicated to their love. Bates was not only a lesbian, feminist, and social justice fighter, but a strident anti-imperialist.
Speaking of strident anti-Imperialists, lets not forget author Mark Twain. Twain's political works (heavily censored at the time), especially concerning the war in the Phillipines, were amazingly harsh; he actually suggested a new flag for the Phillipines: our normal flag, but with the white stripes replaced by black, and the stars replaced by skull and cross bones.
What about the pledge of allegience? It was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy. Bellamy, a former preacher, was kicked out of his church for trying to work politics into his sermons, even claiming that Jesus was a socialist. Despite being a priest, In Bellamy's version of the pledge there was no "under god" (it didn't even specify "the flag of the United States of America", only "my flag"). Instead, what he originally wanted to add (but was afraid to, if he wanted it to be published) was to have the pledge add "equality" to the list of things being pledged "for all".
I could keep going, but you get the picture. It's nice to see someone mention the versus of "This Land is Your Land" that rarely get sung because socialism is almost a dirty word in this country.