Did Glee Rip Off a Jonathan Coulton Cover? | Hacker News Reader

Did Glee Rip Off a Jonathan Coulton Cover?

wired.com

98 pointslowglow47 comments

This is at least the third time Glee has ripped off a cover and failed to give credit/royalties:

http://www.pleasewelcomeyourjudges.com/2011/11/greg-laswell-...

This is by far the most blatant: they even leave in the Coulton-version-only line "Johnny C"

Especially considering that "Johnny C" is "Jonathan Coulton"...

kind of similar to the song "rapper's delight" which lifted bars from another artist, to the extent of spelling out his name in the first line.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rappers_Delight#Grandmaster_Caz...

The original song really didn't have a melody, and Coulton's version clearly does. If his melody is original, it seems like this has to be a violation of copyright. Certainly the melody of the Glee version is identical to Coulton's.

Hopefully something good comes out of it for Coulton in the end.

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=M...

Glee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y...

This makes for an easier comparison.

https://soundcloud.com/suudo/joco-vs-glee-baby-got-back

Oh wow that's amazing! Obvious in a both auditory and graphical way.

Posted by the user GleeSeason4Songs. Which is in no way official...

No no no. Artistic copyright only matters to CONGLOMERATE media companies; not silly artists the laws should really be protecting!

The best part was when I came across some random guy on Twitter that was trying to say that it was ok because JC is a 'nobody.' I couldn't tell if he was some sort of shill or just a random idiot (probably the latter).

What this will hinge on (and why it is relevant to HN) is whether Coulton's release of songs under the Creative Commons BY-NC license (attribution, non-commercial) AND his additional statement that the the CC/non-commercial clause did not apply to covers (with encouragement to mix) still protects his copyright over the arrangement and derivative lyrical changes.

I am of the opinion that he does retain these rights since the intent is clearly to not put the whole work under the CC since he can't extend his compulsory license to Sir Mix-a-Lot's lyrics to others. If he had released his arrangement separately under a CC-BY-NC, or even CC-BY, he still would have retained the copyright to that...but I don't think he ever did. It is his unfortunate wording outside the license...informal and non-legal, that creates the confusion.

You see this with open source projects (usually sole developers) who release under a restrictive license but then assure you that gray area uses are permitted. These always give me pause. But when there's money on the line and license clearances are part of your business, there is absolutely no reason not to get absolute clarity and clearance before using the work. It is a lot easier to do beforehand than after, which I think Fox will find out.

I predict an amicable ending and a new JC song about the ordeal that will be right up there with "Code Monkey" and "Re: your brains" in the hacker/free culture pantheon.

Per Coulton himself, he hasn't found any definite proof of it being used in a Glee episode so far, so it's ossible that it;s some overenthusiastic fanboy/girl.

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2013/01/18/baby-got-back-and-...

It's in iTunes in Sweden[1], and Kotaku claims[2] it was in the US store but was pulled.

[1] https://itunes.apple.com/se/album/baby-got-back-glee-cast-ve... [2] http://kotaku.com/5977149/glee-egregiously-rips-off-jonathan...

It's being sold by Fox on iTunes http://imgb.mp/iX6.jpg

Sweden rather than US tells me it's an administration error. Not all episodes of this show have aired yet, so it may be that someone added it before the rights licensing process was complete, or it's also possible that it was planned for one episode but they decided not to use it in the end (which happens a lot in film and TV production).

I understand that this concerns copyright issues which may be germane to the issue in the tech world, but is mass media drama such as this truly qualified as "news for hackers"?

I would be interested in the demographics of those who up vote articles of this ilk. Not to pass any judgement on them, but out of curiosity as to who finds this news to be important.

Jonathon Coulton himself is relevant to many hackers due to to the intersection of his work with many tech/geek related interests including his authorship of numerous themes to computer games, songs about being an unappreciated programmer, songs about the Mandelbrot Set, songs about passive aggressive T1000 helper robots, songs about doomed ST:TOS red shirts, etc.

As for Glee itself -- I have nothing positive to say.

I'll come out and say it...

I used to watch Glee with my girlfriend for the first two seasons and found it quite entertaining. At least it tried to do something different than be yet another three camera laugh track sitcom.

I got tired of the stupid plotting and characters though, between the musical-chairs dating and the cheerleading coach alternating between evil bitch and nice person every other week, both I and my girlfriend just lost interest in the characters and stopped watching.

I enjoyed it for the first few seasons, I generally like musicals. I got tired of it too for basically the same reasons.

I didn't know they had done this kind of thing before (or at least been accused, see the top comment). When I saw this story earlier today I played that video... I was amazed. It was a nearly perfect copy. That takes a lot of chutzpa.

Someone put a comparison of the two songs up on SoundCloud (link is elsewhere in the thread) and it's nearly perfect. Same tune, same BPM, just a perfect copy.

I enjoyed most of the first season, but then it took a hard left off into political preachin' and lost the quirky charm that made it fun to begin with.

Coulton is also relevant as a very successful internet entrepreneur: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/14/136279162/an-inter...

I speculate that upvoters here include fans of "Code Monkey" and "Re: Your Brains".

Also, "Still Alive", of course, at least among those of us who are also video-gamers.

But that aside, as a software developer I find copyright and other IP issues are very interesting and increasingly (and all too often in unfortunate ways) important to my field and I would find this noteworthy even if the subject didn't have obvious "geek cred".

Tell you what I'd like to know: what commonality exists between people who post these utterly unproductive expressions of incredulity in contravention of the very clear guidelines for posting here.

I'm sure that nobody at Fox will be facing jail time for copyright violation if they did rip it off. "I care about content, but only as long as its mine."

Yes. They even used the lyric "Johnny C's in trouble", referring to Coulton himself and substituting the original "Mix-A-Lot's in trouble".

That's how covers work. They can be a nice thing — essentially quoting an artist you like — or they can be bullshit, like this.

It's not illegal, but it's not ethical.

This article would seem to indicate that it is in fact illegal.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/01/18/jonathan_coul...

To put the song on itunes, that's a cover

To broadcast it on TV with people singing it, that requires a sync license. That requires direct negotiation with all parties who hold any copyright.

IANAL, but I thought those rights only extended to parodies? Covers aren't protected because the copyright extends to the words and music.

The JC version has a distinct melody/arrangement, so qualifies as an original work. The lyrics are not.

Exactly, the music is different enough that the entire production counts as an original work, whereas the Glee version has neither, and thus would be considered a cover.

IIRC parodies are generally legal due to fair use and covers are also legal (as long as you pay the royalties) due to statutory licensing.

(edit: removed the happy birthday analogy, it doesn't really clarify anything)

In John Coulton's case, I'm not sure what he was required to do in order to license the lyrics for his original cover; i.e. whether he paid the calculated rate or negotiated something else. But it looks like Glee owes to two parties at best (if they actually lifted his audio like Timbaland this could get ugly)

The joco version is properly an arrangement. Also, parodies are certainly protected, but in what way is glee's version a parody of joco's arrangement?

I'm not saying that it is, mr_eel claimed that Glee's version wasn't illegal.

I like how Coulton is just sitting back and letting his fans handle this, by communicating their view to the media and giving them credit.

The 2nd most annoying part of the story is Wired requiring stupidly large images so we view extra ads, which in this story is a screenshot of the YouTube player.

Someone literally decided that would be better than embedding the video the entire article is about.

I'd like HN's resident piracy advocates to weigh in on this.

35 years in prison.

Brilliant. We should start a White House petition to force US Federal Prosecutor Carmen Ortiz to aggressively pursue Fox until they admit to fixing the 2000 election...

Anyone thought of the benefits to Glee doing their cover? Sales coming the way of the artist. Lots of sales.

It might be a rip off, but the artist will get paid by it being a song to download in the coming weeks.

This might be true if Glee gave credit to JoCo - linkbacks, promotion, etc. As it is he might see extra sales because he called them out.

Not to mention the long tail effect of "mentions" is really, really limited, and drops off fast to boot. Any extra sales he sees will all be today and tomorrow.

Only disingenuous used-car-salesman types would pretend that a footnote small-print mention is worth anything more than a sandwich.

That would be true, if it was attributed. But it's not. The only thing people will be downloading from this will be the Glee cover.

Glee put the song for sale on their iTunes account. They're getting the sales, not Coulton.

Well if you're right, Coulton could have his cake and eat it too. Not many Glee fans who become interested in Coulton's version will be discouraged just because of Coulton's legitimate griping.

Either way, Coulton's strategy of helping his fans handle this is a sound one.

That's why attribution is important.

Edit: What azylman said.

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