Universal Music Lawyers Realize That Taking Down Charlie Brown / Smiths Remix Not The Brightest Idea They've Had
from the about-time dept
We've already written about Universal Music issuing totally bogus takedowns to Lauren LoPrete for her amusing remix that takes Peanuts comic strips and replaces the text with lyrics from The Smiths. And we wrote about the counternotice she sent to Tumblr, done via awesome law firm Booth Sweet. Apparently, someone within the lawyerly ranks at Universal Music realized that this was an incredibly stupid thing to be doing, and told the LA Times that it is "dropping its pursuit" of LoPrete's site. Why it even started in the first place is a question for another day. Of course, now we await the news that Iconix Brand Group, the owners of Peanuts Inc., decides that it, too, wants to be ridiculously overly lawyerly. After all, it's done it before.
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Filed Under: charlie brown, copyright, peanuts, remix, the smiths
Companies: universal music
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Oh, maybe you've been manipulated yet again.
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Going legal might have gotten a headline or two, but it created a bad reputation for the Smiths (because most people equate the label's actions with the band). It doesn't make them want to listen to them. Not all publicity is good publicity, esp. in the arts.
But go ahead and believe it was all a scheme if that makes you feel superior.
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Bada bing, bada boom....
Now they can charge additional "Band Protection" services against the royalties as well... if this sounds like Mob protection ... it is, you wouldn't want anything "bad" to happen to your band now would you?
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Re: Oh, maybe you've been manipulated yet again.
That explains lots, Lucy.
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How long will it take before companies realize that their law firms don't necessarily have clients' best interests at heart.
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Conflict of Interest
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The more optimistic among us would hope that the lack of any action in this case means that they learned their lesson and realise that legal action will do nothing to protect their material, and that there's nothing negative to come from leaving it up. I try to be optimistic that these people will eventually learn, anyway.
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Obviously because lawyer. Think of the poor lawyers!
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http://calvinanddune.tumblr.com/
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