A musical mash up of Johnny Cash and Barbie Girl, created by YouTuber There I Ruined It, was played for Congress in a bad example of AI threats.
A musical mash up of Johnny Cash and Barbie Girl, created by YouTuber There I Ruined It, was played for Congress in a bad example of AI threats.
The video’s maker claims this is parody but seems more like just (at best) satire which receives less legal protections typically. It doesn’t seem that there’s any commentary on the work original IPs, given the rest of his body of work.
It’s straight up parody. It’s a composition in the style of Johnny Cash that’s meant to be funny. That’s parody.
See: Weird Al’s polka medleys.
He’s got years of this under his belt. His whole career is based on this.
I think There I Ruined It is going to be fine.
That’s satire. In the US for something to be parody it has to be a commentary on the original work(s) or author(s). A parody of Johnny Cash would be something like if they used AI to copy his song note for note but had lyrics that criticized him for portraying himself as bluecollar in his music despite his wealth.
Parody receives higher protection than satire because the parodist is actually trying to make a statement. Most “music parody” like that of Weird Al is satire, which is why Weird Al asks for permission from the original artists.
Wut?
Parody is by definition imitation, frequently poorly, but usually excessively over-dramatic. It doesn’t have to be a commentary on the original.
Satire has nothing to do with imitation at all, and is instead sarcastic or facetious for the purpose of drawing attention to things.
Webster offers a lay definition not a legal definition. Often in law words are interpreted to have meanings different than they normally would. For example a company would be considered to be a person for the purposes of a law saying “No person shall dump oil in the river”.
Cornell law also disagrees
While it is common that yes, parodies are indeed social commentary, this is far from necessary for something to be a parody (and the matter only really comes into play considering if the original work’s use falls under fair use or not.
The defining characteristic remains that it is an exaggerated imitation of something. It doesn’t receive higher protections- it just more commonly is found to be fair use than otherwise.
Weird Al either changes the lyrics (parody) or makes a polka version of the tune with the original lyrics. Still immune from lawsuits. He doesn’t have to get the artist’s permission. He does it out of courtesy, because he’s a good human being
Would say “protected from losing lawsuits” by my understanding. If lawsuits were NBD that’d be pretty pedantic, but they can still be costly to win.
The law might give you a nearly bulletproof defense, but defending yourself saps a lot of mental energy, time, and money.
You don’t need permission for true parody but changing the lyrics (unless you do so to comment on the original work or author) isn’t that.
Take Amish Paradise. It commented a bunch on the Amish. But it didn’t say anything about Coolio or Coolio’s work.
Not according to the copyright alliance (emphasis mine):
https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/parody-considered-fair-use-satire-isnt/
The issue is there is not clear commentary on either Cash or the Barbie song. Perhaps it’s meant to be contextually interpreted in a specific situation to act as commentary on something else, where it might be satire. And the fact that the two melded together offers a funny juxtaposition isn’t necessary commentary.
What does the author think of Johnny Cash or the Barbie song? What does he mean when he has the Beach Boys sing 99 Problems? The Red Hot Chili Peppers video from 10 months ago probably would get parody status. Because what they sound like to people who don’t like them is actually commentary on the band. But so many of his works we can ask what should society walk away with from “Hank Williams sings Straight Outta Compton”? There simply is no message or commentary in most of these.
Legal Zoom
If anything granting it satire status is generous.