Incredible, the yodel's worth jumped from 3 to 7 figures once the artist's lawyers evened the playing field!
This story reminds me of the Nike logo one, quote Wikipedia: For her services, the company paid her $35 ($206 in 2015 dollars), citing that she worked 17.5 hours on creating the Swoosh.
I'm curious about IP protection on a 3.5 second performance, comprising 3 notes.
What would appropriate "fair use" look like? And evidently, the fact that Yahoo made it their branding was something legally different than a local performance. Odd system we have.
Whatever appropriate "fair use" is, I'm pretty sure it isn't build your brand around it, and if you license a composition for use in a regional radio ad in order to avoid royalty payments, it's not fair use to also use it for everything else, whether it's 3.5 seconds long or not.
The Intel jingle is only four notes, but Walter Werzowa's done rather well out of being paid to compose variants of it and it's rather more famous than his actual records...
It probabbly is significant that they paid him in the first place too.
Also would "fair use" in your mind apply to anyone else too? Not sure Yahoo would want to go all brand heavy on something anyone else could pick up either.
He wasn't paid. He was paid for giving a copyright license for a regional commercial. He wasn't paid for the copyright license Yahoo! needed for everything else they used his yodel for.
This story reminds me of the Nike logo one, quote Wikipedia: For her services, the company paid her $35 ($206 in 2015 dollars), citing that she worked 17.5 hours on creating the Swoosh.