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

from the grab-some-popcorn dept

Thu, Jun 16th 2011 1:48pm — Mike Masnick

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.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: copyright, friday, rebecca black
Companies: ark music factory, youtube

24 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

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

Re: Re:
That's not fame. That's infamy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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 thread ]
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 thread ]
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 thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:47pm

Re:
That's OK, this one is better....

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

I know IHOP always gets my money when hear this one....
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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 thread ]
Planespotter (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:57pm

Result!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PrometheeFeu (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 3:09pm

Re: Re:
I hate you!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2011 @ 3:20pm

Re:
And yesterday was Wednesday.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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 thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2011 @ 3:37pm

Hacked maybe? Sounds like something 4chan or lulzsec would enjoy doing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ltlw0lf (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 3:48pm

Re: Re:
That's OK, this one is better....

Hey, I use that same checklist every morning.

Still not a zombie yet...but I wonder if I'd use the checklist if I was?

Pancakes are great, just don't put syrup on them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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 thread ]
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 thread ]
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 thread ]
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 thread ]
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 thread ]
The eejit (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 3:49am

Re: definitely some sort of fight behind the scenes...
Ah, the joys of entitlement culture.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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 thread ]
fairuse (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 9:29am

Re: Re:
Take this for hurting my ears and brain.

Miss Black unplugged -- on ABC morning show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CBzT2pv1Jc
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Brittney Cavallari, 17 Jun 2011 @ 11:36am

Well thank god.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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 thread ]