I don't understand the law here. Fox/Glee can separate two independently copyrightable components of a work -- the lyrics and the arrangement --, then pay off the lyricist and rip off the arranger with the law being none the wiser? Why do lyrics receive preferential treatment under the law? What happens if you take two popular songs, strip the lyrics from one and combine it with the arrangement of the other? What if you add your own lyrics to someone else's arrangement: do you now own the work? What if your cover of their cover is byte-for-byte identical to their cover, that's not a copy?! Can this channel separation copyright hack be reused in other contexts (software, movies)?
My understanding is that the crux is that in exchange for a very simple and easy licensing of the original, Jonathan Coulton signed away all of his rights except for his rights to his actual performance/recording.
Weird Al gets more complicated (and presumably expensive) licenses of the originals, so that he full out owns his creations.
That can't always be true, because in the debacle over Amish/Gangstas Paradise he stated that he was misinformed that the original artist has OKed it as a matter of courtesy, but that he had parody freedoms anyway.
Comments
I don't understand the law here. Fox/Glee can separate two independently copyrightable components of a work -- the lyrics and the arrangement --, then pay off the lyricist and rip off the arranger with the law being none the wiser? Why do lyrics receive preferential treatment under the law? What happens if you take two popular songs, strip the lyrics from one and combine it with the arrangement of the other? What if you add your own lyrics to someone else's arrangement: do you now own the work? What if your cover of their cover is byte-for-byte identical to their cover, that's not a copy?! Can this channel separation copyright hack be reused in other contexts (software, movies)?
My understanding is that the crux is that in exchange for a very simple and easy licensing of the original, Jonathan Coulton signed away all of his rights except for his rights to his actual performance/recording.
Weird Al gets more complicated (and presumably expensive) licenses of the originals, so that he full out owns his creations.
That can't always be true, because in the debacle over Amish/Gangstas Paradise he stated that he was misinformed that the original artist has OKed it as a matter of courtesy, but that he had parody freedoms anyway.