So a little backstory on a one second clip in RiP: A Remix Manifesto. Remember this? Its from the Negativland video (their first!) Gimme the Mermaid which was made by Tim Maloney while he was off the clock at Disney (on their equipment). The whole thing is pretty trippy and features a very telling phone conversation by a copyright... holder.
In a time before YouTube This Land, made by JibJab, went viral. It was 2004 and the video was a parody of the US election between Bush and Kerry. The video has original lyrics and visuals but used the soundtrack of an existing song "This Land is Your Land". Ludlow Music Inc., the firm which claimed to own the song, threatened a lawsuit over JibJab's use of the audio track. Now, this video may not be the type of remix music that RIP: A Manifesto refers to, but this particular parody is an interesting use of digital copyright.
In this case, JibJab sued Ludlow Music Inc. JibJab argued that under the law their use counted as "fair use". More importantly perhaps is that JibJab won. At the time of the original songs, "This Land is Your Land", writing, the copyright only allowed for 28 years with the potential to renew for another 28. Due to differences between the year the song can be confirmed as offered for sale, and the year the copyright was registered the lawsuit discovered that "This Land is Your Land" came into public copyright in 1973. Ultimately JibJab and Ludlow came to an agreement which allowed JibJab to keep their parody video up. JibJab's version though, was judged ineligible for copyright protection as the parody was judged to be on the election not the song.
JibJab's video "This Land"
However, this particular example, though it is of parody, helps to illustrate the development of copyright in the digital environment. It also highlights the fact that parody's have as much potential for difficulty as remix when it comes to ownership and lawsuits.
Anyone else remember this PIRACY IS THEFT!!!!!!! ad? It was a fairly scarring part of my childhood and it perpetrates a pervasive metaphor in copyright and piracy debates.
Well, why should we blindly trust that we'll get our money's worth? Consider that a console video game is about to hit CDN$100. That is a substantial sum to spend on an untested product. I wouldn't even buy a lipstick without testing it (and a movie ticket is now more expensive than my lipstick). If the conglomerations that control our media refuse to give a clue at what we're paying for, illegally accessing a (usually) inferior product to test it first just seems like the smart thing to do.
