Infamous Rebecca Black YouTube Video 'Friday' Taken Down Over Copyright Issue?

from the grab-some-popcorn dept

If you haven't yet come across the phenomenon of Rebecca Black and the song Friday, I'll just assume you've been in a coma for the past couple of months. Back in April, we noted that there appeared to be a copyright fight brewing around the video, and whether or not the rights were owned by Ark Music Factory or Black herself. Even the founders of Ark Music Factory didn't seem to agree. The whole thing was a mess waiting to happen...

So it's interesting to see that the video, which had well over 100 million views, appears to have been taken off of YouTube due to a copyright claim. The message on the video says the claim was from Rebecca herself:
YouTube apparently gave TechCrunch a not-particularly-informative answer when it asked YouTube if Black had filed a takedown notice, so it's still a little unclear what happened here. On top of that, there were some oddities earlier in the week where the video had temporarily switched from being free to being a $2.99 YouTube rental. So there could just be something weird going on... or there could be some sort of fight behind the scenes. Either way, I sense that the legal side of this is about to get a lot more interesting.
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Filed Under: copyright, friday, rebecca black
Companies: ark music factory, youtube


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  • identicon
    MrWilson, 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:07pm

    Whatever the cause is, they did the world a favor.

    Rather than teaching kids to learn an instrument and develop their own style, the Rebecca Black scenario just tells kids that they can't have a famous song unless they're rich enough to pay for someone to write really bad lyrics and autotune the crap out of your voice.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:17pm

      Re:

      I think the signal to the children is more "you don't need any talent at all to become famous." Not sure they'd want the RB style of fame, but there it is.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        E. Zachary Knight (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:21pm

        Re: Re:

        That's not fame. That's infamy.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Mike42 (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:25pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Exactly. MrWilson, the song was infamous for being soooo bad.
          It's hilarious that somebody thought people would pay for it. Kinda like "being hit on the head lessons."

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Richard (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:35pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          That's not fame. That's infamy.

          Infamy, infamy - they've all got it ...

          link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Malcolm Law, 16 Jun 2011 @ 6:02pm

          Fame versus infamy

          Fame is fleeting. Only infamy is forever. Rebecca Black's generation recognise Hitler but not Churchill. Go figure.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            abc gum, 17 Jun 2011 @ 5:12am

            Re: Fame versus infamy

            "Rebecca Black's generation recognise Hitler but not Churchill. "

            Probably due to the Hitler reacts meme

            link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Prashanth (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:39pm

    Darn it Mr. Masnick, now you've ruined tomorrow for me. (For those in the western hemisphere, tomorrow is Friday.)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    A.R.M. (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:47pm

    A small correction...

    ...I'm not in a coma. Rather, it appears I've been extraordinarily lucky to escape it.

    As for the topic... meh. It's not like I wanted to go looking for it just to be a statistic.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Planespotter (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:57pm

    Result!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Kaskade, 16 Jun 2011 @ 3:27pm

    You know Mike has run out of things to talk about when he talks about Rebecca Shit Black

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2011 @ 3:37pm

    Hacked maybe? Sounds like something 4chan or lulzsec would enjoy doing.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Hugh Mann (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 3:49pm

    $2.99? Are you kidding?

    I mean, excpet for Rebecca's mom & dad, who would pay to view it? I mean, good for her (and by "her", I mean along with whoever showered her with money) to do what every little girl loves to do - playing dress-up with Mom's clothes & jewelry and putting a on a show with her friends in the backyard - and turning her little fantasy into something a bit more substantial.

    If you look at it the right way, you can enjoy it the same way you can enjoy watching kids playing make-believe.

    Granted, some parts (like where d's and t's get intentionally silenced, so you get words like "di'n't", and that whole nasal voice thing she's got going on) really grate on my nerves, but she's just a kid, right?

    Anyway, even in my most charitable mood, there's no way in Hell I'd pay money to watch that thing. The $2.99 price must have been some sort of mistake, as I can't see anyone REALLY thinking she'd make more than $9.00 once she, her mom and her dad paid up.

    HM

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Nicedoggy, 16 Jun 2011 @ 4:11pm

    Finally something good came out of copycrap.

    This is one of the rare instances, copyright actually is useful to the general public

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    LegitTroll (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 5:04pm

    While I understand the sentiment.

    I completely understand the reaction to this posting. Rebecca Black was hoping to be the next Bieber with this release, but all its done is propel her to the butt of a few over saturated jokes. The purpose of removing the video now seems to be rather late. 10 million hits, hundreds of parodies and lip syncs. Is there really a point? Are they going to put that really crappy genie back in a bottle somehow?

    I think that I would rather be rickrolled then ever have to hear that again, but the pancake song was pretty catchy though.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    bunnyhero (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 9:48pm

    definitely some sort of fight behind the scenes...

    it seems no one reporting on this looked at rebecca black's twitter account (@MsRebeccaBlack). they would have seen the following tweets from her when the rental fee appeared on the friday video:

    "Thanks for all the messages regarding the $2.99 fee added to Friday video, I have NOTHING to do with this!!"
    "PS...My Manager and Lawyer are on this and are going to get to the bottom of this! Stay tuned..."

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Brittney Cavallari, 17 Jun 2011 @ 11:36am

    Well thank god.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jason, 18 Jun 2011 @ 10:06am

    Mebbeh..

    ..she just woke up to how awful it is and is asserting her copyright to keep it from being played to her embarrassment.

    It's an interesting perspective on deciding the best term length for copyright. How long SHOULD she be allowed to suppress her own speech in order let this ugly, ugly thing fade into obscurity?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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