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Comment by kt9 | Hacker News Reader

Can someone give me some more context on what this is about and the backstory here? A link to something that explains whats going would be great!

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Simple recap: Sir Mix-a-lot does a song, 'Baby's Got Back' which Jonathan Coulter does a cover of. Mixalot's more techno/rap and Coulter is more of a musical arrangement. Then Glee (TV Show) does a cover using Coulter's arrangement (music and additional lyrics) and doesn't so much as acknowledge his existence, much less pay the required licensing fees.

Ah! Many thanks for bringing me upto speed. Not cool of Glee to avoid giving credit where credit is due!

*Coulton

This has been covered elsewhere - there are no required licensing fees unless Glee actually used Coulter's sound recording. Fox is guilty of a dick move here, but as long as they recreated the instrumental track themselves, they are legally in the clear.

However, I think it's likely that Fox actually used Coulton's karaoke backing tracks, which would mean Fox infringed Coulton's copyrights. I'm hoping for someone to do a digital analysis showing whether this is true.

It has been done! In particular a look at the "quack" that Coulton used in his version (instead of cussing like Mix-a-lot did): http://geeklikemetoo.blogspot.com/2013/01/about-that-quack.h...

He also points to a great example indicating that the beginning was likely edited too: http://imgur.com/a/F0HTP#1

Also, if you're someone that trusts their own ears and has headphones, you can hear Glee's in your left earbud, and Coulton's in your right, in this pairing: https://soundcloud.com/suudo/joco-vs-glee-baby-got-back

Wow, those links are spectacular. Thanks for highlighting them.

Here's why this is an issue. Coulton released his sound recording under the Creative Commons, by-nc-sa . If they used his sound recording, Fox/Glee is infringing all three parts of that license:

- They didn't attribute - They released it commercially - They didn't release it share-alike

A creative commons license is additive, so they could have worked around it by contacting Coulton and getting permission ($$).

Since they did none of that, Coulton has legal grounds here, specifically relating to the use of the sound recording. In my IANAL opinion. :-)

So Coulton composes some music, to which he sings someone else's lyrics. I don't see why he's not due composer's royalties. I'm not in the industry, but I'd read some place long ago that the composer gets his cut, the lyricist gets hist cut, and the recording artist gets his cut. And as soon as someone records it and releases it, then anyone else can record it, too, under compulsory licensing where the composer and lyricist continue to get their cuts (based on the rates in the compulsory parts of copyright law.)

What I'm not seeing here is a good explanation of how this all actually breaks down now. It seems to me that I'm way off from the current Way Things Are Done. How does Coulton's "arrangement" not qualify as an original composition that's deserving of copyright protection and compulsory licensing payments? Assuming I'm right, attribution isn't part of the law, license payments are.

JoCo created a cover of Sir Mix A Lot's song "Baby got back" in 2005 and paid the proper license to distribute his version.

Glee (A TV show in the US on Fox) copied his version but did not pay him any royalties.

So he has re-released his 2005 version with the title "Baby got back in the style of glee" so that people searching for the stolen copy from fox will find his as well.

He apparently isn't owed royalties, he just wants acknowledgment.

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

Thanks for the response. Is there a reason why he doesn't take Glee/Fox to court?

Seemingly what Glee/Fox did is technically legal, while clearly unethical.

"and paid the proper license to distribute his version"

So his version doesn't count as a derivative work?

Yes, why wouldn't it? Derivative works still have to license the original work to be legally distributed.

Because it turns out that that isn't how music licensing works. If you look at the comments on previous threads on this issue it's been pointed out that JC doesn't have much in the way of rights over his version due to the way licensing agreements for cover versions work.

Whether or not it's right (morally) for Glee to not give him credit is a different matter, but all evidence is that Glee is in the right legally.

Derivative works need permission from the original publisher, while cover songs only needs a mechanical license. Or I'm I mistaken in assuming he only had a mechanical license?

http://www.harryfox.com/public/Licensing-GeneralFAQ.jsp#131

Glee is an American musical TV show that covers a high school glee club (singing club) complete with all the teen drama of high school. They sing covers of existing songs during their musical acts. They sang Jonathan's cover of Sir Mix a Lot's "Baby Got Back" recently. Except the cover was sampled either 100% for the medley or recreated to a point of being imperceptibly similar. Jonathan was not given any attribution for this. Now Fox is selling recordings of this cover of Jonathan's cover. Does Jonathan have a claim to his cover of an already copyrighted work?

They've definitely overstepped the line on it. Next time they're thinking about taking down material on copyright grounds they might want to reflect on this case.

It is perhaps worth noting that the reason why this can happen is that the group of people running Glee and the people handling copyright takedowns are two completely different sets of people. Unless this event catalyzes communication between those two groups, you can expect to continue to see inconsistencies in policy enforcement like this.

There's an implicit assumption here that consistent behaviour within a corporation matters. I think this is wrong. Corporations' interests are served perfectly well by them behaving inconsistently whenever it suits their interests. There may well be executives in Fox who know about the inconsistencies here who simply don't care, because it doesn't affect the bottom line.

This isn't the first time Glee's done it either.

https://twitter.com/richardcheese/status/292725851068440577

To be entirely accurate, Glee now covers High School and College. This particular song was sung at NYADA ( New York Academy of Dramatic Arts).

Took me a moment to figure it out too. You can compare his version with the Glee ones to see how their cover is identical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yww4BLjReEk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCWaN_Tc5wo

http://musicmachinery.com/2013/01/25/joco-vs-glee/

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