With reference to my previous blog post, I am glad to say that wiser heads have prevailed among the NDP Committee. They have decided to pull the totally-ridiculous 'Fun Pack Song' from its lineup.
However, it wasn't for reasons of sanity that they did so. It was because it turns out that while they had paid the rights for airing the original 'Bad Romance' song, they did not have the rights to actually modify its lyrics into 'The Fun Pack Song'.
Since MINDEF is in charge of this fiasco, this photo seems oddly.... appropriate.
Let me get this straight..... the powers-that-be had no idea that 'rights to air a song' is not the same as 'rights to air a modified version of the song'? Any monkey who ever listens to music and reads news related to the music industry knows how seriously copyright rules are taken in the music world.
For one thing, remember the uber-awesome Ghostbusters theme we all rocked to back when we were all kids?
Ghostbusting makes me feel good!
Ray Parker Jr was sued for ripping the guitar riff off from another song. And he lost the suit.
You don't even need to rip off an entire guitar riff to get sued. Robbie Williams was taken to court for lifting one single line from an existing song. And he lost the case, giving up 25% of royalties earned from that song in the process.
Bottom line is, if you want to rip off someone else's song, make sure you have the full clearance to do so first. You also need to make sure that you have full permission to modify the lyrics while negotiating for the clearance. This situation that the NDP organizers got themselves in can only be described as a bad case of 'I thought, you think, who confirm?' If my legendary BMT platoon sergeant had been in charge, the next thing that would have happened would be that we would all be knocked into a 'half-left down position' and have to hump the floor repeatedly.
Or to go forth and grope a faraway tree.
The threat of litigation from Lady Gaga's parent company isn't an idle one, either. Try clicking on the Youtube link in my previous post - it has been taken down, by order of Sony ATV. If Sony felt moved enough to order Youtube to remove the song, think about what they could do to the original perpetrators of this fiasco.
Legal issues aside, I also have a very big question to ask the NDP organizing committee: what the heck were they thinking? 'Lady Gaga == cool == let's pay the legal fees and rip it off'? Would it kill them to just hire a local songwriter to create a perfectly-original song? If anything, it would probably cost less, the money would have remained within our economy, and it would be certainly a lot more creative than just ripping off a foreign song.
In the end, I believe Adolf here kind of speaks for everyone:
Either Chan Mali Chan or Geylang Sipaku Geylang would have been far better choices.
However, it wasn't for reasons of sanity that they did so. It was because it turns out that while they had paid the rights for airing the original 'Bad Romance' song, they did not have the rights to actually modify its lyrics into 'The Fun Pack Song'.
Since MINDEF is in charge of this fiasco, this photo seems oddly.... appropriate.Let me get this straight..... the powers-that-be had no idea that 'rights to air a song' is not the same as 'rights to air a modified version of the song'? Any monkey who ever listens to music and reads news related to the music industry knows how seriously copyright rules are taken in the music world.
For one thing, remember the uber-awesome Ghostbusters theme we all rocked to back when we were all kids?
Ghostbusting makes me feel good!
Ray Parker Jr was sued for ripping the guitar riff off from another song. And he lost the suit.
You don't even need to rip off an entire guitar riff to get sued. Robbie Williams was taken to court for lifting one single line from an existing song. And he lost the case, giving up 25% of royalties earned from that song in the process.
Bottom line is, if you want to rip off someone else's song, make sure you have the full clearance to do so first. You also need to make sure that you have full permission to modify the lyrics while negotiating for the clearance. This situation that the NDP organizers got themselves in can only be described as a bad case of 'I thought, you think, who confirm?' If my legendary BMT platoon sergeant had been in charge, the next thing that would have happened would be that we would all be knocked into a 'half-left down position' and have to hump the floor repeatedly.
Or to go forth and grope a faraway tree.The threat of litigation from Lady Gaga's parent company isn't an idle one, either. Try clicking on the Youtube link in my previous post - it has been taken down, by order of Sony ATV. If Sony felt moved enough to order Youtube to remove the song, think about what they could do to the original perpetrators of this fiasco.
Legal issues aside, I also have a very big question to ask the NDP organizing committee: what the heck were they thinking? 'Lady Gaga == cool == let's pay the legal fees and rip it off'? Would it kill them to just hire a local songwriter to create a perfectly-original song? If anything, it would probably cost less, the money would have remained within our economy, and it would be certainly a lot more creative than just ripping off a foreign song.
In the end, I believe Adolf here kind of speaks for everyone:
Either Chan Mali Chan or Geylang Sipaku Geylang would have been far better choices.
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