Which Crazy Copyright Holder Took Down Katie Ledecky/Carlos Santana 'Smooth' Mashup First?
from the who-gets-the-gold? dept
By now you've probably seen or heard about the somewhat amazing world record and race victory by swimmer Katie Ledecky in the 800 meter freestyle, in which she came in first by a rather astounding 11.38 seconds. There are some photos floating around showing her basically all by herself in the pool:Katie Ledecky, pictured with the 7 next best swimmers in the world. pic.twitter.com/3C08xu9DL7
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger_sherman) August 13, 2016
🇺🇸 @katieledecky broke her own world record, and won by over 11 secs, in the 800m freestyle https://t.co/sGZvx9919C pic.twitter.com/lB0tuhe2uI
— NYT Graphics (@nytgraphics) August 13, 2016
Either way, various people were creating other ways of showing all this, and a guy named Jimmy Donofrio created a video that I think showed the end of the race synced up to the opening of the famous song "Smooth" by Carlos Santana, featuring Matchbox 20's Rob Thomas. You've heard the song. It's basically impossible for anyone to not have heard this song (or at least that opening guitar riff) at some point since it was released in 1999. Apparently, if you start the song just as Ledecky finishes, it gets all the way through the opening and up to Thomas saying, "Man it's a hot one...." before the 2nd place finisher touches the wall. The mashup video started to go viral. MTV News reported on how awesome it was.
But, if you go to that tweet now this is what you see: Someone -- either the Olympics or whoever holds the copyright to the song -- issued a takedown. This is ridiculous. The use here was almost certainly fair use. But when you have two of the most aggressive copyright aggressors around -- record labels and the Olympics -- I guess it's no surprise that they would ignore fair use and take down content like this, which is the kind of content that would likely only get more people interested in either the Olympics or the music. But, no, copyright is apparently more important than that.
Separately, it's disappointing and somewhat ridiculous that Twitter agreed to take this down. I get that it doesn't want to lose any DMCA safe harbors -- and perhaps it doesn't want to piss off the Olympics -- but seriously, get a backbone and stand up for fair use.
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Filed Under: carlos santana, copyright, fair use, jimmy donofrio, katie ledecky, rob thomas, smooth, takedowns, the olympics
Companies: olympics, twitter
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Ad hominem
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We need to stop insulting people with mental disorders by calling record executives "crazy". Crazy people do not deserve to be insulted like that.
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Re: Ad hominem
That's not an ad hominem.
You should learn what words mean.
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Learning what words mean would require reading. Not sure AC has unlocked that particular skill yet.
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How are such issues settled?
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They own everything.
Stop trying to steal from them.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK8i6aMG9VM&index=20&list=PLlRceUcRZcK0E1Id3NHchFaxikv CvAVQe
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Despite that, between the singer's tendency to mumble and the intelligible parts being a big jumble of word salad, no matter how many times I heard it I never did attain the slightest idea of what the song is actually about, beyond "gimme your heart, make it real, or else forget about it."
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huh, who knew, since you cant understand 75-80% of the lyrics, and most of what you can understand is fluff, or pointless, or me-Me-ME!!!!!
now, get off my song !!!
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And then you've got meaningless jumbles of word salad like this one and American Pie.
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Are we?
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Well I have now.
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All a matter of incentives
Growing a backbone with regards to the DMCA opens you up the possibility of insanely expensive legal fees and fines, whereas caving has no penalty whatsoever. The incentives provided by the law are entirely on the side of content removal, while the penalties are entirely on the side of keeping content up, so it's not surprising that most companies and individuals would weight the two options and go with the first more often than not, as taking the route of content removal is the much safer option.
It may be disappointing and disgusting that so many companies simply fold any time a DMCA claim is made, but with the law written to be entirely one-sided it should never be surprising, as it's working entirely as designed.
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Repost it...
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Well, they've succeed, I no longer care.
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Get rid of all the lawyers
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Re: Get rid of all the lawyers
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