Aw… that’s really disappointing. 
But a pretty big deal is made out of the fact that he doesn’t HAVE to do that, he just does because he’s a stand-up guy. And the rare times when there was a misunderstanding and he didn’t have permission (see Coolio), the original artist didn’t take legal action because parody is protected.
It could very well be. My whole point is that there are no hard and fast rules for deciding it one way or the other. The fact that it is used an ad does not automatically make it not fair use, though it probably won’t help them out.
I don’t even see how they can claim this is a parody. Parodies are generally regarded as either humorous or exaggerated versions of the original. This is neither. It’s basically a direct copy with different lyrics. Obviously there’s no bright line that determines fair use under the law. That guarantees that a lawsuit and court hearing is needed to make that determination on a case by case basis.
A very similar thing happened with Die Krupps and Rammstein. They have to give Jurgen Engler credit now on the album for “Tier” because they ripped off an older Die Krupps track “Dawning of Doom.”
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When the Beastie Boys recorded Pauls Boutique sampling (repurposing a small part of a longer work to create a new work) was a legal gray area. This is not sampling and repurposing to create a new work. This is a wholesale copy with merely different lyrics.
Yes, you can copyright melodies too.
well, I would aspire to be as cunning ＼（＾ ＾）／
Yes, Al pays, though I suspect he only records stuff where they allow him some sort of songwriting credit (so he gets some of the money when it gets played on the radio, as a mere performer, he’d get nothing).
@Doctorow said:
The irony here is pretty thick: the Beasties are still being sued over their use of samples on their early albums, including the classic Paul’s Boutique. Every pirate wants to be an admiral, of course, but for the Beasties to decry remix culture even as they go to court to defend their (perfectly legitimate) right to make new things out of other creators’ old rope is pretty sad.
I think this is a bit heavy-handed slagging of a group that’s advocated remix culture in various other venues and ways.
Firstly, as mutants we should all be informed via the work of Scholar @Ed_Piskor that if the Bboys didn’t sue an advertiser (British Airways) for an uncleared sample we’d likely not have any but their earliest works. So their disdain for advertisers is not new.
Secondly, the Bboys were early aboard the Creative Commons movement, release some of their own work under it and put up a capella tracks of their songs to enable remixers. Remixers from the Kleptones to Girl Talk to The Beastles have all made great works from this (all of which you have extolled in these pages, Cory). So, it’s a bit unfair to claim they are “decrying remix culture.”
Here’s Yauch in his own words
Q. Do you feel like you’ve respected the context of the music you’ve sampled?
YAUCH: Again, it’s a context issue, because not every sample is a huge chunk of a song. We might take a tiny little insignificant sound from a record and then slow it way down and put it deep in the mix with, like, 30 other sounds on top of it. It’s not even a recognizable sample at that point. Which is a lot different than taking a huge, obvious piece from some hit song that everyone knows and saying whatever you want to on top of that loop. An example that’s often brought up in court when we get sued over sampling is a Biz Markie track where he more or less used a whole Gilbert O’Sullivan song. Because it was such an obvious sample, it’s the example lawyers use when trying to prove that sampling is stealing. And that’s really frustrating to us as artists who sample, because sampling can be a totally different thing than that. [emphasis added]
To be fair, the Goldieblox version is great in how it comments upon the original, and I can see it being a fair parody. However, I can understand how some can see daylight between “sampling” for fair use and “parody” for fair use (The Bboys in this matter, I presume), and understand there are some who do not differentiate (Doctorow).
Me, I’d like to see more daylight between commercial speech (like advertising) and full first amendment protections, mostly because commercial entities have a tendency to use their greater resources to exploit the system (see also, the recent greater protection given to commercial speech when it comes to political campaigning, and how crummy that’s been). But then, I’m not on the bench.
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Mr. Doctorow in his element.
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A good idea for what? No matter people’s station in life, there’s no shortage of certainty about what everyone else should be doing. I’m a teacher and a musician with two children. I make very modest money working hard to teach and entertain people’s backs, not “off” of them. I’m sure you could find plenty of holes in my day to day actions, to which I would generously offer the two-fold reply that you worry about what YOU can be doing to ride a higher horse of righteous behavior and that you further go fuck yourself.
I see a lot of talk about fair use. Seems to me that’s not the conversation. Sampling law is the conversation, if they actually found samples to the music. If they had written and performed this parody, it would clearly be fair use. But they sampled another song, apparently without legal permission, and you can’t really do that in 2013.
So many misconceptions here, rather than blat the thread with half a dozen replies I’ll heart-vote the factual replies and summarize here…
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Yes, you can copyright melodies and lyrics, separately or together.
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Yes, it’s a parody. The lyrics of the original objectify girls as objects of sexual desire. The ad parodies this by détourning the song into one about the intellectual development of girls as scientists.
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Whether it’s commercial or not has no bearing on whether it’s a parody. Also, the fact that it’s commercial does not automatically mean that it’s infringing. I hate ads as much as any other occasional Adbusters reader, but I don’t think that’s in itself a reason to favor the Beastie Boys in this battle, because this ad does have a legitimate positive message, even if the product doesn’t necessarily support it.
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Weird Al asks for permission, but that isn’t a legal requirement for parody. Partly he prefers to have a non-confrontational relationship with the stars he parodies, and avoid legal trouble and expense. And partly, since the reasoning set out in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music it has been clear that the courts will look more skeptically at “parodies” which don’t parody what is being copied; and generally Weird Al’s “parodies” are just goofy, rather than making any point about the original song. Weird Al being played on the radio would still get money without a songwriting credit; however, he gets more money if he shares a songwriting credit. (That’s also why there are lyrics for the Star Trek theme.)
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Cover versions require payment of royalties via the performing rights agencies, a so-called “mechanical license”. My assumption would be that the toy company have paid the mechanical license fees because they are reproducing the music, though if it’s a fair use parody they don’t have to, as Cory notes. It’d be smart to pay the mechanical license just as a bit of additional ass-covering, in my view.
So overall, it seems pretty clear to me that regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) of the product, the ad is a legitimate parody of the original song. My guess is that Campbell v. Acuff-Rose applies, and the Beastie Boys don’t have a legal leg to stand on. I’m also disappointed that they would take this move; I guess they felt that trying to enforce Adam Yauch’s will was more important than being seen as morally consistent in their attitudes to sampling, remixing and parody. My take is that Yauch’s will was really asking that they not voluntarily license their music for ads, and that this is going a step too far in trying to enforce the literal wording.
An interesting aside is that in some countries, the Beastie Boys might have a strong legal case. In the UK, copyright has additional terms known as the “moral rights” of the creator. The moral rights include the right to not have your work be used for commercial purposes you disapprove of. Specifically, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 chapter 4 covers the “right to object to derogatory treatment of work”, in the event that the parodist fails to put a prominent notice up saying that the original creator does not approve of the parody.
I strongly recommend Negativland’s book Fair Use as an entertaining romp through copyright law for anyone interested. They also have a nice PDF mini-book, Two relationships to a cultural public domain.
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Weird Al’s “Eat It” is a parody of Michael Jackson.
That’s not what’s being done here. This is McDonald’s using “Eat It” to sell Big Macs. Not sure how they wouldn’t owe SOMEONE some pretty fat royalty checks in that situation.
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And that’s what the legal case will determine. But it is my understanding that “fair use” is less likely to be approved of, if the usage is in a context that’s more commercial than artistic. That is, if the purpose is not to sell the art itself - such as a song, a book or a poster - and more to sell a product besides the art - such as toys or hamburgers.
So, the hypothetical case here is not really a parrallel because McDonald’s is not in the business of art. However if McDonald’s had a copyrighted recipe for their crap burgers and the Beastie Boys started selling burgers made with this recipe as a “value added” for their CD’s, then I am sure the Beastie Boys would have a problem.
Further exploring the hypothetical, if McDonald’s is a band in this case, then the Beastie Boys sampling them not just segments for samples, but for their entire song, is quite damaging. This is and should be legally discouraged. This is why most musicians producers who want to essentially sample something for an entire song, as as the Verve or Sean Combes, must now get appropriate clearance beforehand - because court cases has been won and precedents have been settled.
So to complete the hypothetical with the Beastie Boys as a hamburger giant, yes if the indie band from Brooklyn named McDonald’s had a hit and the Beastie Boys multinational took the song, changed the lyrics and started using it to sell their hamburgers, then yes the Beastie Boys would have a problem.
If, on the other hand, McDonald’s is a hamburger giant who is using an artist’s song to sell hamburgers without getting an agreement beforehand, that seems to me as cut and dried legally as it is ethically.
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Been a big fan of the Beasties since “Polly Wog Stew.”
Not anymore.
Not only will they lose (parody, obv), but what a totally dickish move.
Also: Welcome to the Streisand Effect, idiots.
I have to admit I’ve had a similar reaction when my daughter received it as a gift. It seemed like once the torque thing was done once, it got a bit boring to do it over and over again, just because the little story called for it. It would have been neat to have every character demonstrate a different kind of motion or kinetics.
At least, my daughter likes to imagination-play with the figures now. But she is more interested in good ol’ LEGO (the 4 large toolboxes full she inherited).
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Yeah it’s like they think they are a punk band or something, going after corporate appropriation that may make them look like they are selling out.
I’m not saying the BBoys are going to win the legal day here, but I don’t see their motives as discordant nor hypocritical.
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Adam Yaunch didn’t want Beastie Boys songs in advertising, period. Despite the creative nature of the advertising and the good message, at the end of the video we’re still seeing a product for sale. In my opinion the statement GoldieBlox have released on this matter is extremely hubristic and they seem totally content in resting on their progressive image to, at the end of the day, steal a (admittedly dumb and sexist) song and shill a toy with it.
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