
Jonathan Coulton vs. Glee - chrismealy
http://musicmachinery.com/2013/01/25/joco-vs-glee/
======
charlieok
My favorite of the comparisons is this one:

<https://soundcloud.com/alacrion/joco-v-glee>

Jonathan Coulton in the left ear, Glee in the right ear.

~~~
chimeracoder
That's actually quite a nice harmony.

Of course, the reason for the harmony is because the vocals align so (almost)
perfectly, creating an effect familiar to most musicians, who rely on it for
ensuring that their instruments are in tune.

 _That's_ how perfectly the two align. Damn.

~~~
emddudley
> ... creating an effect familiar to most musicians, who rely on it for
> ensuring that their instruments are in tune.

I believe you are referring to acoustical beats.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_%28acoustics%29>

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apetresc
Wait, now I'm confused. I thought data wanted to be free and copyright laws
were archaic and meant to be broken? Someone set me straight, quick!

~~~
rosser
The outcry here is less about whether copyrights are being respected, than
about whether copyrights are being respected _by people who insist that you
must respect copyrights_.

~~~
pi18n
Also there are plenty of us that are pro-reform and anti-outrageous lawsuits
who are also against the infringement as well.

When I see a large player in the industry fuck up and "steal" someone's
copyrighted work, it's yet another example of how they don't give a shit about
artists, despite what they claim. These incidents are perhaps a good way to
show the public what large media corporations are really concerned with;
making money for the execs at the expense of anyone else. If the public is
aware, maybe we'll have better success at reforming copyright and other IP
laws. (Although I cannot deny there is the schadenfreude aspect of it also.)

But please note the scare quotes, because it's not a theft, due to the exact
reasons I would argue regarding any other two entities with copyright
disputes.

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tuananh
"They also got in touch with my peeps to basically say that they’re within
their legal rights to do this, and that I should be happy for the exposure
(even though they do not credit me, and have not even publicly acknowledged
that it’s my version – so you know, it’s kind of SECRET exposure)."

Source: Coulton's blog <http://www.jonathancoulton.com>

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jawns
If it's true that the copyright to the derivative work becomes the property of
the original copyright holder, then it would seem as if a simple hack could be
used by cover-song creators to avoid being Coultoned:

Nominally release a version of the song with the original arrangement and
original, throwaway lyrics prior to releasing the version with the original
arrangement and derived lyrics.

That way, the cover song is a derivative of two original works, and in order
for an entity like "Glee" to cover your cover, they'd need permission from
both of the copyright holders -- you (for the melody) and whoever owns the
copyright to the lyrics.

Lawyerly types, am I on to something here?

~~~
bostonpete
JC bought a compulsory license to distribute his version of the song. That
license effectively gives the copyright of his version to the copyright holder
for the original version.

~~~
jawns
But what I'm proposing is to gain the rights to create a derivative work based
on TWO original works. So, the copyright of the derived work would be assigned
JOINTLY to the copyright holder of the original arrangement (the artist
himself) and the copyright holder of the original lyrics.

~~~
bostonpete
That's not an option in the license he bought. I guess you could imagine all
sorts of creative arrangements, but the license under which this work was
available required him to forfeit the copyright of the derived work. Adding a
second original work to the mix wouldn't solve that problem.

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learc83
Anyone who's experienced with this area of the law care to comment?

Does he hold the copyright to the original melody he composed for this song?

Does that fact that he released a karaoke version without the vocals affect
anything?

Is his melody considered an "arrangement" of the original considering the
original had no melody?

If I write an original instrumental song, do I lose the copyright to the
instrumental by releasing a version that includes someone else's lyrics?

~~~
tunesmith
The comments over there explain this pretty thoroughly. Short answer is No, he
holds no copyright to the original melody.

Interesting final question though - no, you don't lose the copyright to the
instrumental, but I'm not sure of the proper way to describe the new
arrangement of the song.

~~~
DannyBee
Are you sure? I'm an IP lawyer, and even i'm not sure of the answer.

1\. There is a very weird set of rights around music/sound/synchronization
built into copyright law 2\. I would never trust random commenters on the
internet, even those experience in music, to know the answer.

Why? Because of how this stuff actually works in practice.

People assume that "Fox surely did this right before they did this", except,
you know, they often don't.

When they want to use a track, they just use it, and then throw it on the
uncleared list and get around to figuring it out later.

This is because they've made a licensing/etc scheme that is so convoluted,
that often nobody knows who to contact to get all the rights necessary
(ASCAP/NMPA et al are sometimes helpful, sometimes not)

In some types of cases, there are compulsory licenses, in some, there aren't.

~~~
tunesmith
Yeah, obviously I'm not "in the know" regarding what steps Fox might have
skipped. I just know that:

a) If a song is published (and BGB was) then anyone has the right to cover it
(a compulsory license always exists)

b) If someone covers it, the covering artist gets no copyright of the musical
material - all that is retained by the song copyright owner(s). (This makes
intuitive sense, as it otherwise would restrict the ability of other artists
to create more covers of the song. You'd have to make sure that your
arrangement choices didn't conflict with ANY other arrangements out there.)

c) The covering artist does have copyright over the _sound recording_ of the
arrangement.

Now, if techie people wanted to get involved in a way they could actually
affect things, rather than just theorizing about what someone's
actions/motivations might have been, there's opportunity here:

Coulton released a karaoke track of his version of BGB. It's released by-nc-
sa. It's considered likely that Fox used this karaoke track as the backing
track for their version. If so, they have infringed on all three portions of
the license (no attribution, they're selling it, they didn't release it share-
alike).

So - I don't know how to do this, but it seems like someone could do a
statistical analysis of the karaoke track, and Fox's version, and prove within
some statistical likeliness that Fox used the karaoke track and did not simply
re-record their own instruments. (Note that it WOULD be legal for Fox to re-
record Coulton's arrangement note-for-note since it would no longer be using
Coulton's sound recording.)

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tunesmith
It certainly is an interesting case study on the finer points of licensing. I
agree that unless they used parts of Coulton's actual audio (as opposed to
recreating it), Fox is totally in the clear here, by the letter of the law.
But still, what a dick move.

Not the first time it's happened, either. Friend of mine had one of her a
cappella arrangement "ripped off" without credit too.

Just goes to show... if you're a creative musician, invest that creativity in
originals.

Last question - how was Coulton going to get _any_ exposure hit from this at
all if there wasn't a stink raised? You'd think the morons over at Fox would
do a little spreadsheet analysis and realize that might actually be more
profitable to just put his name in the credits as "Guest Arranger" or
something.

~~~
bhickey
Coulton stated that he licensed Baby Got Back and wrote an original melody. I
suspect that they are very much not in the clear.

~~~
tunesmith
Mechanical license means that your derivative work's copyright is still owned
by the original publisher, including any "original melody".

~~~
tantalor
That's absurd. There's no way the melody would fall under the mechanical
license for the lyrics. Why would it?

The lyrics and musical arrangement are clearly distinct entities.

~~~
tunesmith
From what I understand it's part of the conditions of getting the mechanical
license through HFA. It might be conceptually absurd, but that doesn't mean
that's not how it works.

~~~
tantalor
Obviously you don't need a license for your own work. JC's license would be
for the lyrics and nothing else. Everything else is his.

Image I author a book that contains the lyrics as a component. I would need a
compulsory mechanical license, right? But does the rights holder own my book
now? Of course not.

The melody in this case is not a derivative work. It has nothing to do with
the the original work (i.e., lyrics).

~~~
tunesmith
I think "Paul's" comments in the original thread have it right. I am not a
lawyer, but I am a songwriter and have researched this a lot in the past. It's
complicated enough that it's easy to forget the particulars, but the general
upshot is that if you do a cover, no matter how creative your cover is, you
basically have no rights except for the sound recording.

Your book example is a different question entirely.

Look at it this way. You can also take a song _with_ a melody, and completely
alter the melody into something entirely different, but it doesn't mean that
you get a songwriter credit on the new version. If it did, people would be
doing this all the time. And the original version of the song isn't "half a
song", as in everything but a melody - not legally speaking. If that were
true, we'd have thirty years now of people trying to write melodies for
already-released rap tunes, in an effort to get their financial cut.

So legally speaking, putting a melody on a rap tune still only yields a
derivative work. Coulton has no rights as a songwriter in this case.

Again though, if Fox took the audio to his backing track... that's a different
matter entirely.

One big asterisk, though. It might be too late for this, but Coulton arguably
could have gathered more leverage had he called his version a parody. But
that's a really high bar, because for it to be a parody, it would have to
implicitly comment on the previous work, thereby transforming it. As opposed
to a simple satire, which "builds on top" of an existing work. A parody is
protected by fair use, and it is possible to copyright the original parts of
the parody. So if he had been able to argue that his song was a parody, he
could have copyrighted the melody. And given that Coulton's artistic choice
was limited to putting a nice melody on top of a rap tune, I doubt that would
hold up in court, because it would set a hell of a precedent to all the other
rap tunes out there.

~~~
tantalor
Thanks for explaining. I think I understand a little better now.

This Wired article also helps,

    
    
      Coulton said that while his lawyers have been looking
      into the copyright issue, it seems unlikely that he
      will have any legal recourse. ”It seems that because of
      the compulsory license I purchased when I made a cover
      of this song, the arrangement itself is not protected
      under copyright, although it’s the darkest gray of the
      gray areas [of the law]… While there may be some weird
      offshoot of the law, it doesn’t seem like something
      where a little guy could sue to get any satisfaction.”
    

[http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/01/jonathan-coulton-
glee...](http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/01/jonathan-coulton-glee-song/)

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qwer
I love how few people mention Sir-mix-a-lot -- You know, the guy that actually
wrote the song and popularized it. The Acoustic-version-of-hip-hop song genre
is not terribly original, and even predates youtube considerably. I have a
hard time feeling sympathy for either one of these cover artists.

~~~
omaranto
Well, you know who does mention Sir-mix-a-lot? Jonathan Coulton: he does
explicitly state his song is a cover. He wrote a new melody, which the Glee
people used but did not acknowledge. I'm not sure what Glee's position is,
maybe they claim they are covering Sir-mix-a-lot and happened to make the same
arrangement and write the same melody that Coulton did.

~~~
jaredsohn
Doubtful, since they also happened to change the lyrics to say "Johnny C's in
trouble"

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soupysoupysoup
Huh. I hear "Leaving on a Jet Plane" while listening to this..

<http://grooveshark.com/s/Leaving+On+A+Jet+Plane/3nvT5s?src=5>

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b1daly
One strange aspect of the use of the compulsory licence. If the cover creates
a new melody, and all the (composition) copyrights stay with the original
author, in that case the original author would seem to gain an expanded set of
rights including the copyright on the new melody.

Another strange twist in the area of compulsory licence is that it only
applies to fairly close versions. If you want to make a truly derivative work,
in my understanding, the compulsory licence doesn't apply: You have to
negotiate a special licence from the copyright holder. For example if you want
to change the words.

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smosher
Rightsholder, n: a person who owns the rights to other people's work.

A similar case:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbaland_plagiarism_controver...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbaland_plagiarism_controversy)

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Yver
As someone who's unfamiliar with none of the original song or either of the
covers, it took me until 2:25 to figure out when it alternated between the
songs.

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kondro
It's pretty brave for Glee to piss off the Internet.

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the_mitsuhiko
Next step: invert signal and add them up.

