Totally agree. Old legos found at yard sales work just fine for us… assuming my daughter even has an interest in that. Despite my wife not being girly at all, my daughter certainly is (at least at age 3) and we have no desire to try to force her into a preconceived feminist box any more than we want to force her into a preconceived “math is hard” box. If she ends up loving engineering (like her grandfather), great. If she ends up wanting to wear stylish dresses and sculpting hair cuts for a living, great. If she ends up interested in both, or neither, great. The thing I find most unattractive about GoldieBlox is its overly-obvious, contrived attempts at being everything a “modern, affluent, liberal parent” would want, demographically speaking. Blech.
I still think letters, direct opinions from their supposedly-targeted audience, carry some weight, though.
Incidentally, I’ve got Bloomberg on in the background right now, and there’s a guy on right now talking about his Kickstarter - the Kano computer, that is designed for kids (a little older that yours) to build themselves… and which, quite frankly, I kind of want for myself. That’s a helluva lot more interesting than GoldieBlox.
I think you’re absolutely right. In fact, I don’t think you could find a better song to compare Girls to. The sad fact is that the irony of these songs is way more oblique than a lot of people realize. In fact, taking them at face value is incredibly easy; and the fact that it’s so easy to take them at face value just proves that many people actually think in way superficially exemplified by the Beastie Boys song.
Sorry if I’m not explaining myself clearly. I’ve tried making a similar point in another BB thread; and for some reason I’ve found it rather difficult to communicate what I’m trying to say. I guess my point is that while Girls may not be serious, it sadly also manages to be juvenile and, actually, kind of negative towards women. Hell, even if it’s obvious that it’s joke, I can see people (women?) still being annoyed and insulted by it. In that light, the parody is (kind of sort of?) empowering. I dunno, I thought it was reasonably clever.
If that didn’t make any sense, please say so. Sometimes typing is just difficult. =P
Except the Beastie Boys didn’t fight it, and they fought the Beastie Boys.
Also they created a commercial jingle… not a positive anthem for girls. In the same way “Have it your way” is not a manifesto of individuality, but a stupid catchphrase.
Am I the only one who thinks that maybe Golbeblox are just a little fresh in the world and don’t quite have their feet under them yet?
I really don’t necessarily see any planned douchebaggery here, just a not-totally-savvy response to a super serial situation that is easily extrapolated into a proposition that seems to me to approach the profundity of the nets conspiracy instinct.
… except they are at a particular moment in time when they need every ounce of publicity they can get. Holiday season, of course, and they’ve got a new product to push.
More importantly, they’re competing for online votes in that Intuit Small Business/Big Game competition; if they win (which I’d be shocked if they don’t), they get a Super Bowl ad and all kinds of extra publicity around that. We’re talking millions of dollars of publicity - and there was other discussion I was reading about them being in the middle of a large capital raise. There’s a real big incentive for them to get their name out there at this particular moment.
Conspiracy-theory? We’re not talking grassy-knoll level stuff here. And, the company founder has been known in the past to (intentionally) push some buttons to get notice; that whole “I want a goat!” campaign from a couple of years back that may have been well-intentioned but which was more than a little distasteful.
They had a declaratory judgement drafted and filed by Orrick within 24hrs of the phone call from the Beastie Boys. They even already knew who all the rights holders for the song were (hint, it’s not just the Beastie Boys). That simply doesn’t happen in 24 hrs. They had the DJ written and waiting for the Beastie Boys to call. Probably had the press release ready as well. Once the Beastie Boys’ lawyer called, they just needed to file and wait for the media to take the bait.
And in reply to you both, @da_Bird@rtyu, I would ask if you think it is unusual for a firm to be aware of the fair use issues and have ready a reply from the legal department.
That seems to me to explain the quickness of their response and preceding lack of actual consideration of other options.
In a board room or perhaps one of those little coffee spaces off the side of the cubicle-less office, someone laughed at the suggestion of re-tasking ‘Girls’ and then someone else played the srs-about-legal-bznz card as a way of showing forethought.
They jumped on that shit because they had the awareness to have a plan for that eventuality but not enough to actually play it in the real world with adaptations and re-planning.
As someone who make commercials for TV and online I can tell you this retraction stinks to high heaven.
Music rights and clearances are a huge part of the production process and the producer would have thought through all the possibilities when making a conscious decision not to clear the rights.
As experienced viral marketeers they knew exactly what they were doing.
I was almost with them until they wrote that open letter. What a saccharine, bullshit letter.
I get they tried to parody. I get there was a legal grey area and they went for it, but the ‘poor us, we’re just trying to save the world’ shit is infuriating.
If their response was truly as earnest and well-intentioned as they say, it’s too bad they’ve decided to go with such a passive-aggressive we’re sorry you’re big meanies about everything message.
If they truly just want to be “friends”, then it would have been cool to just apologize for reals (without the ‘but we were just being niiiice and you weren’t’ slant) and maybe not post the note publicly before the other party responded. Otherwise, they’re not wanting to be ‘friends’ and whatnot but just trying to make the other party look like mean assholes even more than the whole situation already has. I didn’t really care- or understand- who’s rights were what and who was ‘winning’ anymore, but I know I find emotional blackmail annoying as heck, whomever engages in it.
What is the relationship between Fair Use law and commercial gain? I figured that the use of the melody wouldn’t qualify for Fair Use protection based on the obvious for-profit purposes… but I’m no expert.
Commercial gain is just one aspect of Fair Use, and does not necessarily disqualify a Fair Use defense, but must be weighed with the other factors. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (92-1292), 510 U.S. 569 (1994).
If you couldn’t ever use parodies commercially, Weird Al wouldn’t have much of a business model left.
The should-be-clear-to-everyone difference is that Weird Al’s parodies are first and foremost commentaries on popular culture, a by-product of which is that he was able to sell records and make money. GoldieBlox’s parody, despite the portrait they are painting, is first and foremost an advertisement meant to sell toys, a by-product of which might (I guess) lead some girls into becoming civil engineers. Weird Al is serving the public good, believe it or not, and GoldieBlox is serving their wallets. That’s the difference.
It is pretty brilliant. The marketing itself was a Rube Goldberg machine.
Step 1: Marble rolls down the ramp
-Release adorable video with B-Boys parody. Use your PR contacts to make sure it shows up in all the right places. Video gains traction and reaches attention of B-Boys. Lawyers send letter of inquiry (as expected)
Step 2: Marble hits dominoes
Headline: B-Boys sue ToyMaker!
But not really. It’s the headline that’s important
Step 3: Domino springs mouse trap
Headline: ToyMaker sues B-Boys!
But not really. See above
Step 4: Mouse trap strike a match
-Endless debate is had across the internet about the ethical and legal implications. ToyMaker’s name is mentioned approximately a zillion times
Step 5: Fire pops the balloon
ToyMaker removes song and makes public, 'Aw shucks, we were just trying to do something positive FOR THE CHILDREN!" declaration.
And in the end we all feel a bit used and icky but we sure know wtf GoldieBlox is
