When You Need To Post A Lengthy Legal Disclaimer With Your Parody Song, You Know Copyright Is Broken
from the i-got-99-problems,-and-copyright-is-absolutely-one dept
In a world where copyright law has run amok, even creating a silly parody song now requires a massive legal disclaimer to avoid getting sued. That’s the absurd reality we live in, as highlighted by the brilliant musical parody project “There I Ruined It.”
Musician Dustin Ballard creates hilarious videos, some of which reimagine popular songs in the style of wildly different artists, like Simon & Garfunkel singing “Baby Got Back” or the Beach Boys covering Jay-Z’s “99 Problems.” He appears to create the music himself, including singing the vocals, but uses an AI tool to adjust the vocal styles to match the artist he’s trying to parody. The results are comedic gold. However, Ballard felt the need to plaster his latest video with paragraphs of dense legalese just to avoid frivolous copyright strikes.
When our intellectual property system is so broken that it stifles obvious works of parody and creative expression, something has gone very wrong. Comedy and commentary are core parts of free speech, but overzealous copyright law is allowing corporations to censor first and ask questions later. And that’s no laughing matter.
If you haven’t yet watched the video above (and I promise you, it is totally worth it to watch), the last 15 seconds involve this long scrolling copyright disclaimer. It is apparently targeted at the likely mythical YouTube employee who might read it in assessing whether or not the song is protected speech under fair use.
And here’s a transcript:
The preceding was a work of parody which comments on the perceived misogynistic lyrical similarities between artists of two different eras: the Beach Boys and Jay-Z (Shawn Corey Carter). In the United States, parody is protected by the First Amendment under the Fair Use exception, which is governed by the factors enumerated in section 107 of the Copyright Act. This doctrine provides an affirmative defense for unauthorized uses that would otherwise amount to copyright infringement. Parody aside, copyrights generally expire 95 years after publication, so if you are reading this in the 22nd century, please disregard.
Anyhoo, in the unlikely event that an actual YouTube employee sees this, I’d be happy to sit down over coffee and talk about parody law. In Campell v. Acuff-Rose Music Inc, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed for 2 Live Crew to borrow from Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” on grounds of parody. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when the justices reviewed those filthy lyrics! All this to say, please spare me the trouble of attempting to dispute yet another frivolous copyright claim from my old pals at Universal Music Group, who continue to collect the majority of this channel’s revenue. You’re ruining parody for everyone.
In 2024, you shouldn’t need to have a law degree to post a humorous parody song.
But, that is the way of the world today. The combination of the DMCA’s “take this down or else” and YouTube’s willingness to cater to big entertainment companies with the way ContentID works allows bogus copyright claims to have a real impact in all sorts of awful ways.
We’ve said it before: copyright remains the one tool that allows for the censorship of content, but it’s supposed to only be applied to situations of actual infringement. But because Congress and the courts have decided that copyright is in some sort of weird First Amendment free zone, it allows for the removal of content before there is any adjudication of whether or not the content is actually infringing.
And that has been a real loss to culture. There’s a reason we have fair use. There’s a reason we allow people to create parodies. It’s because it adds to and improves our cultural heritage. The video above (assuming it’s still available) is an astoundingly wonderful cultural artifact. But it’s one that is greatly at risk due to abusive copyright claims.
Let’s also take this one step further. Tennessee just recently passed a new law, the ELVIS Act (Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act). This law expands the already problematic space of publicity rights based on a nonsense moral panic about AI and deepfakes. Because there’s an irrational (and mostly silly) fear of people taking the voice and likeness of musicians, this law broadly outlaws that.
While the ELVIS Act has an exemption for works deemed to be “fair use,” as with the rest of the discussion above, copyright law today seems to (incorrectly, in my opinion) take a “guilty until proven innocent” approach to copyright and fair use. That is, everything is set up to assume it’s infringing unless you can convince a court that it’s fair use, and that leads to all sorts of censorship.
So even if I think the video above is obviously fair use, if the Beach Boys decided to try to make use of the ELVIS Act to go after “There I Ruined It,” would it actually even be worth it for them to defend the case? Most likely not.
And thus, another important avenue and marker of culture gets shut down. All in the name of what? Some weird, overly censorial belief in “control” over cultural works that are supposed to be spread far and wide, because that’s how culture becomes culture.
I hope that Ballard is able to continue making these lovely parodies and that they are able to be shared freely and widely. But just the fact that he felt it necessary to add that long disclaimer at the end really highlights just how stupid copyright has become and how much it is limiting and distorting culture.
You shouldn’t need a legal disclaimer just to create culture.
Filed Under: contentid, copyright, dmca, dustin ballard, fair use, parody, there i ruined it
Companies: youtube
Comments on “When You Need To Post A Lengthy Legal Disclaimer With Your Parody Song, You Know Copyright Is Broken”
A not-zero number of fanfic authors still post legalese like this with their works. Given the state of copyright and the litigious nature of many corporations (and some individuals), a CYA disclaimer is better than nothing.
“And thus, another important avenue and marker of culture gets shut down.”
Clever phrasing in this particular context, Mike. Assume you were going for the Beach Boys song Shut Down:
“Tach it up, tach it up
Buddy, gonna shut you down”
Re: Yeah, and this also highlights why we need to abolish copyright
I talked with the guy and apparently UMG claimed the video shortly after this article was written. Checked via a VPN, and apparently several countries cannot access it, especially in Europe.
Re: Re:
People use hammers and nailguns to commit murder. Should we ban all such tools and remove people’s ability to put nails into walls, or shall we just allow the abuse of those tools to be punished without it unfairly impacting others?
Parody is part of free speech it should not be restricted or limited by copyright as long as its clear this is a parody,
rg its not the latest song released by taylor swift or Beyonce .ai can make this worse as it can be used to make a song that sounds like the original artist.
sometimes parodys can attract fans to the original artist.
Mad magazine used to have parodys of hit films and tv series maybe changing the name slightly.
https://www.amazon.com/Magazine-1979-Grease-parody-TRAVOLTA/dp/B093R5N4HQ
you knew you had a hit tv show when it was on the cover of Mad magazine .
i dont think they were ever sued as it was obvious it was a parody
Why Is Parody Considered Fair Use but Satire Isn’t?
Both parody and satire employ humor in commentary and criticism, but the key difference, and the reason that under copyright law, parodic uses are more …
https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/parody-considered-fair-use-satire-isnt/
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The main difference between Mad Magazine (and people like Weird Al Yankovic) is that they have large corporations behind them. If someone wants to complain about copyright infringement, they have to file a lawsuit and go to court.
But this is completely different for an individual YouTube artist. Basically, the complaining company just sends an email and YouTube takes the artist’s video down and gives them a strike. There’s no legal argument and no debate about established case law.
Then if the artist gets 3 of these strikes, YouTube takes his or her channel down.
Yes, parody and satire should be allowed, and without a lengthy disclaimer (which no lawyers will read), but that means YouTube needs to change their rules.
Unfortunately, the bottom line is that people shouldn’t upload anything to YouTube unless they created it 100% themselves. Otherwise, they run the risk of getting a copyright strike.
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https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/parody-considered-fair-use-satire-isnt
It depends where you are. In the UK (for example), parody includes satire because the legal definition of parody there is the same as the dictionary definition, rather than being unnecessarily restrictive as it is here.
If the music groups are happy to send takedown requests on CLEARLY FREE USE parody on the expectation that the other side won’t resist…
Why would they hesitate when given a short joke-y description that the previous content was CLEARY FREE USE parody? You are expecting the music groups (and youtube content-id bots, and under-paid youtube dispute interns) to watch not only the entire video, but know enough about copyright law to back down after seeing that text wall?
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Not to mention you just gave UMG a idea to use the ELVIS act. (Though I doubt it will work, they’ll do something akin to ShoPro suing Suede)
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Actually, the correct terms are fair use and fair dealing (which one depends on where the secondary creator is located), not free use.
I think actors sag,aftra are trying to get the law changed so if anyone wants to use their voice they must ask for permission and get a fair payment as in theory voice actors could be simply replaced in the future by high quality AI programs reading a script for a film cartoon or videogame
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Agreed. Any such disclaimer should be posted up front, where it’s obvious. That way, any DMCA’er can be called out by virtue of not having read the disclaimer, and thus not fulfilling a requirement to consider possible exemptions to copyright law, before going off the deep end.
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On the other hand, dead is dead. I resent having to pay to use the thoughts and expressions of the dead.
Re: Re:
Move to Eritrea.
Re: not copyright`
SAG-AFTRA is a union and their members negotiate with movie studios and tech companies who have expanded to being movie studios. While I can see how they would be concerned about an AI use such as this (after all, they had a strike about it), wouldn’t that be a negotiation against a bigger corporation, such as Disney or Netflix, and not a small youTuber?
Copyright is theft.
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And this is why it should be abolished.
Re: Re:
People use hammers and nailguns to commit murder. Should we ban all such tools and remove people’s ability to put nails into walls, or shall we just allow the abuse of those tools to be punished without it unfairly impacting others?
Have you not been paying attention to job requirements?
In 2024 you need a degree to do anything!
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lolwut?
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Remember when school janitors having degrees in drama and theater was supposed to be a joke about the value of arts education? These days the joke is that everyone has a degree, and the value of that has been consistently slipping. Even a degree isn’t a guarantor of an entry-level job because every Tom Dick and Harry graduate competing for that has one, too.
Sure, companies can say that they’ve dropped hiring requirements that mandate having a degree, but if you’re taking promises from corporations, you’re precisely the kind of person that they’d offer to sell a bridge to. Realistically, they don’t need to require having a degree. The odds are high that anyone they end up hiring will already have one anyway.
Huh. When one is performing their own version of a song, parody or not, how the hell does anyone know if you’ve acquired mechanical rights or not? (Haha, lol, no they don’t even care.)
…and Universal just sicced a copyright claim on the video. This is why we can’t have nice things.
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Which only proves that the disclaimer doesn’t fucking work.
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Right, and people committing murder with hammers and nailguns is why we can’t have tools for putting nails in walls. Stop arguing for the banning of the tool and instead argue for another to limit its abuse.
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…aaaaand it’s back!
that escalated quickly
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Universal Music Group
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Sadly but also hilariously proving both the artist caution right and driving the point this article discussed home.
Copyright is a cancer.
The crazier copyright law becomes and is interpreted as the less the public is likely to support it once they learn anything about it, and the more ‘burn it to the ground and start from scratch, there’s nothing left to salvage’ takes the place of ‘there’s still some good there so reform is an option’.
Poop!
After listening to My Hump linked above, I really wanted to hear 99 Problems, but………
Video unavailable
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Universal Music Group
GO TO HOME
When copyrights extend beyond 10 years, then you know copyright law is broken. Long ago, time moved more… slowly. You needed more time to “get the word out” about your creation and maybe make money off it. Nowadays, you shouldn’t need nearly as much time, plus there are a lot more opportunities now for chasing that all important buck. (Though, to be honest, copyright has been so twisted into something far from what it should be, it would be better to just chuck the whole thing as a complete failure.)
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Nah.
Copyright was always about cementing a monopoly and censorship.
If anything, it’s a return to what it initially was.
TBH, he didn’t ruin that at all. He only made the Simon & Garfunkel song better while vastly improving the other two.
While this comment is obvious SEO spam, I… honestly am thinking of a way to figure out if its blatant copying of the original article’s text is allowed under a “fair use” exemption.
All of those “sites” are null and void, just like you said. However, there is one place where Tennessee is gonna have a shit-fit, and that’s the Youtube channel scaredketchup (https://www.youtube.com/@scaredketchup)
However, the scammer/poster obviously has no clue as to how to quote a phrase, as in starting out with the greater-than sign. We probably won’t see him/her again.