For whatever reason–one can never rule out doing the right thing, even with a Stanford grad–Goldiblox has taken their rip off commercial…sorry, remix commercial…no, no, parody video, yes that’s the ticket–apparently the Goldiblox parody video has been taken “private” on YouTube.  There’s also a new Goldieblox video without the Beasties up on Google’s monopoly video search platform, so let’s see how that one does.

The real question is whether Goldieblox’s lawyers will also withdraw the “waiter, there might be a fly in my soup” declaratory relief action they filed against the Beasties and their producer despite a distinctly ephemeral basis, a “justiciable issue” as they say.  (And of course the most important question of all for the lawyers is whether the Court decides to sanction them for wasting the Court’s time with an idiotic PR stunt, but that’s unlikely to happen however richly deserved I may find it to…

As MTP readers will know, part of Silicon Valley’s legal strategy for over a decade has been to twist the defense of “fair use” into an unrecognizable mass that has the same end result as all of the Valley Boys attacks on copyright–artists get nothing and Googlers can buy a $15 million soundproof love palace in Manhattan.  So naturally when the House Judiciary Committee has announced the Chairman’s intention to hold hearings to review the affirmative defense of “fair use”, it would be to the advantage of tech companies to silence any artists or songwriters who would offer a competing view.

Because as we know–everything’s a remix, right?  And if you review the requirements for copyright protection, originality–however small–is generally thought of as a constitutional requirement outside of Silicon Valley.  So if you wanted to undermine copyright in public opinion and you didn’t think you’d have the votes to…

Producers and songwriters should be aware that in the Temporary Autonomous Zone of Northern California (home of the class action award payoffs to the EFF, Berkman Center and other places where copyright haters thrive), the new new thing appears to be suing record producers and songwriters.  Rick Rubin in particular.

According to Adland.tv:

Last week Goldieblox made a big splash on the internet with their Rube Goldberg style gizmo in their commercial which depicted bored girls who decided to build a “Der lauf der dinge”, or a HONDA “Cog” style machine out of ordinary household things, set to the tune of Beastie Boys “Girls”, but with new lyrics. The creative engineer who built the contraption in OK Go’s “This too shall pass”, Brett Doar, spent 2 1/2 weeks building the gadget in the Goldieblox ad.