Looks like @KenatPopehat took a break between mistreating associates to share his views on this:
Thereâs a couple of things going on here which are interesting.
Whether GoldieBlox gets to âuseâ the song, they have already used the song as a launching pad.
Personally, I am happy for them. I hope The Beasties and they come to amicable terms.
Secondly, many of the comments on the video highlight some disappointing and disgusting things. Thereâs a bevy of adult male commenters picking apart not women, but children. These are children in this video. Or picking apart women through children. Itâs not funny boys â itâs fucking dreadful and shameful.
when it comes to advertising iâm going to go with Bill Hicks and suggest that if you are in advertising, kill yourself.
âThereâs no fucking joke coming, you are Satanâs spawn, filling the world with bile and garbage, you are fucked and you are fucking us, kill yourselves, itâs the only way to save your fucking soul.â
Having just tuned in, and reading your EFF link, I have to say, thatâs total B.S. Forget about my personal opinions on copyright and fair use- just looking at the history of this shit, there have been plenty of artists- not companies, just artists- who claimed fair use when parodying another work and lost, simply because there was a commercial element to their work.
Check out this little case between a total unknown comic artist and STARBUCKS. He made a parody logo that was 100% social criticism of the brand, but he also made t-shirts with his parody logo that you could buy. This was a no-name guy with a no-name comic book that sold like 10 copies. Even so, the court ruled that, while it was fair use to parody Starbucks, it wasnât fair use to sell merch with that parody.
That doesnât mean this case is going to go the same way, but I have to side with the Beasties on this one- if they were suing a person, Iâd say fuck them. But theyâre suing a company pretending to do a social service because they claim theyâre promoting positive attitudes towards girls. Excuse me? Itâs a TOY COMPANY. âPositive attitudesâ is a completely subjective point of view, made all the more suspect by the fact that the person claiming this is a TOY COMPANY. During the CHRISTMAS SEASON. Thatâs the only thing that matters here. If they were a âsexistâ toy company selling dolls of girls saying âmath is hard,â everyone on this board would be crucifying them, even though itâd be exactly the same case. These guys have no right to use this song, no matter what their supposed intentions are.
Letâs keep our political tastes out of this, thank you.
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The commercial wouldâve been exactly as entertaining and engaging (if not moreso!) if they had written their own song. I donât understand why they didnât, except that maybe they were hoping for a lawsuit to further their brand.
I poked my ass today,
to see if it still bleeds,
try to focus on the pain,
soothe it with some cream
(I know, I know, itâs NIN via Jonny Cash, but come onâŚ)
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Donât grease my palms with your filthy cash
Multinationals spreading like a rash
I might stick around or I might be a fad
But I wonât sell my songs for no TV ad
â http://rapgenius.com/Beastie-boys-putting-shame-in-your-game-lyrics
Seems like it was their wish long before the will. From âPutting Shame In Your Gameâ (~1999):
"I might stick around or I might be a fad
But I wonât sell my songs for no TV ad "
If I had seen this advert before seeing the articles Iâd have thought the B-Boys sold out. Iâm thinking that this is damaging to their rep.
What clinches it for me, though, is that they didnât ask first. Perhaps they knew what the answer would be and went ahead anyway, but that doesnât make it right. Considering that the B-boys had apologized for their first album (essentially), they may have been amenable to looking the other way. You never know, but itâs uncool to not ask first.
So now this Goldiblocks company just looks like another bunch of corporate, lawyer-wielding, jerks who are hauling cash by using the goodwill of parents who want to their girls to escape the princess paradigm. Allegedly.
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Crossposted @evanplus!
Good idea, you should follow your own advice.
I did, thanks.
I think that was a trademark issue and not a copyright one. Plus Starbuck probably has very good lawyers.
A TOY COMPANY during CHRISTMAS SEASON makes no difference to me. I got no dog in this race. Itâs can you prove a judge or a jury that this is a legitimate parody of the song. How GB presented themselves prior to this (in my non-lawyer opinion) I think would be important.
To be fair the message of the advert is irrelevant, theyâre still just slinging toys.
Nailed it.
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It was a trademark issue, yes, but I donât see how on earth you can call a commercial a parody, ever, in the actual definition of âparodyâ. If I write a parody song that happens to sell a million copies, thatâs not the same as if I write a commercial jingle that happens to have some social relevance. Itâs a pretty huge distinction in my book. Check out wikipediaâs definition, as a starting point:
A parody (/ËpĂŚrÉdi/; also called spoof, send-up or lampoon), in current use, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on or trivialize[citation needed] an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satiric or ironic imitation
This so-called-parody was not created to mock or comment on the Beastiesâ work. It was created to sell toys. It might just well mock and comment on the Beastie Boysâ song, or society, or whatever else. But it wasnât created to comment on their work, it was created to sell toys.
Given the current world with itâs current, weirdo rules about intellectual property, we need to keep the playing field fair. If you allow this to pass as âparodyâ, youâve just destroyed the one barrier that is still protecting art from crass commercialism. Everything has some social relevance, so let this pass and youâll see Kraft âparodyingâ all sorts of stuff to sell their mac and cheese, simply because they are selling a product that they believe to be good for humanity.
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Exactly. As others have noted, the timing is suspicious, and the attempts to use the Streisand effect are blatant. Itâs been really hard to sympathize with a song as mysogynistic as âGirlsâ being abused (and turned into a pro-girls message), but the Assholery in this case falls completely on the shoulders of Goldieblox.
I had really liked the idea behind the Goldieblox products, and had planned on buying some for my young daughter, but no more. Good job Goldieblox. Youâve effectively alienated your target market.
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What do you want to bet that Goldiebloxâs quick-draw lawyers are men?
I feel the same way Bobo (re: buying Goldieblox for my daughter). Smooth move by the legal idioso.
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Just because thereâs an obvious ulterior motive does not make it any less of a parody. Some people sell magazines, opinion pieces, and books. Some people advertise on their blogs. It fully fits the definition of parody you have just described. Just because you donât like a parody and its trollish ulterior motives, does not make it any less of a parody. While internet advertisers may in fact be the scum of the earth who progress from spam, to seizure inducing banner ads, to crapware download button ads, to guerrilla in-ad parody placers, to legal wrangling attention whoring, it doesnât change the legal face of thing. I donât know though, I donât know if GoldieBlocks actually is doing anything wrong beyond some offending some peopleâs ill-conceived perceptions of how they feel the world should be. Honestly, if you ask me, European style, âartistic rightsâ, are a thousand steps backwards when it comes to good progress in copyright. Once you get past the compensation problem, if you believe in open information, you should be able to tear apart and remix and remake to your heartâs content. While there should be protections from fraud, this does not seem to be a fraudulent ad or even an ad that tries to hide the origin. The current system says, if itâs a parody, you can legally make it without compensating the âoriginalâ artist.
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I donât understand your logic. I agree with you idealistically- letâs get rid of all this copyright bullshit and leave everything completely free for the taking, people, corporations, whatever, itâs all just information that no one gets to control. But thatâs not what weâre talking about here- weâre talking about the current system, and if this is the system I have to live with, then letâs see some standards kept.
Actually, yes, it does, as the definition I gave just pointed out. If the primary motive of the piece is to sell something, itâs not a parody. If the primary motive is to comment, and a consequence of that commentary brings in money, it is a parody. Until we go all wild-west with information by making it truly free, this is an important distinction we need to keep clear.
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If something âmocks, comments on or trivializes an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satiric or ironic imitationâ, does it do it by âaccidentâ or was it in fact, âcreated forâ that purpose? By that definition, I donât see how you not call it a parody without imagining up some kind of extra concept of âprimary purposeâ. Most of the time when you parody someone, theyâre not exactly appreciative of what you are saying because you are basically insulting them. Theyâre not going to be inclined to license their work to you, nor do they have incentive to do so at a reasonable market price. While you can do so like Weird Al, and gently chide musical artists, you are also free to ruthlessly trivialize the original work. Typically, the ruthless kind of parody is used when making a political argument. If I wanted to parody Westboro Baptist Church by making giant signs that say, âGOD LOVES BIGOTSâ, am I required by law to be a non-prophit?
