EFO on the Colbert Report?

Steven Colbert played part of some of Carol Gay's compain ad which uses Stupid American on the comercial.  I was sitting there confused because I knew I was halusinating!  Eddie from Ohio is not played on national TV.  I should probally go to bed.

Yup, I saw that. I really hope that wasn't her actual ad. Who the hell uses a song called Stupid American in a political campaign?

Who the hell uses a song called Stupid American in a political campaign?

Would that be a Stupid American?

*laughs* I'll be damned if it wasn't. That was a horrible commercial on so many levels...

I taped the re-run of it, and yep, it's EFO.   I guess someone on the staff is a fan.  And that was NOT a real ad.

The scary thing is that it seems like it actually is:
youtube.com/watch?v=WZyL_er2uFc

The ad was added to YouTube on 7/22/06.

Dude. Even *I* could do better. Hee.

Wow.
That's, um, wow.
And it sounds like they just put the album into the computer and hit play and record at the same time. That has to be the most awkward use of a song I've ever seen. (and that's not even touching on the title)

Suddenly Appalchian State University seems to have a much better recruitment video.

Oh my God, it WAS a real ad.  The DNC should smite this woman, now that her Republican challenger is going to hammer away at her being a "Stupid American" until election day.

DUDE!  She should have gone with "Your first Gay experiance."

DUDE.

No one should ever have to go with my first gay experience.  That was awkward.

Was your first gay experiance awkward?

Whoa. It looks like the commercial is a cookie-cutter template:

Another example. *grins*

That's scary. I talked with Robbie on Sunday and they did not know about the ad until it aired on the Colbert Report. He said that EFO did not give permission to use the song. However, since they didn't use any part of the song that had words, they probably had very little legal recourse. But seeing ALL of those cookie-cutter ads...*facepalm*

Um, hi. It's their song. We're proving that it's a highly recognizable part of their song. Of course, they have legal recourse. Would John Williams just shrug and let someone use the theme from Close Encounters just because, meh, it has no words, so what can he do?

I can't believe someone in politics would just yoink a song like that. Whoever made the cookie-cutter template must be laughing their asses off at the stupid Americans using their ad and inadvertently breaking copyright laws.

If memory serves, it's difficult if not impossible to copyright musical passages. US copyright law is slanted heavily toward melody and lyrics, and doesn't care about the music behind it. :-/

But they didn't just use the sound or record something similar, they used the actual recording, which is definitely protected by copyright law (or should be).

I think the idea is that current law makes it impossible to "prove" that it's actually EFO's song unless it uses lyrics and melody. If they admitted that it was EFO's, I think they'd be liable for a lawsuit, but are safe otherwise.

Well, we can all attest to the authenticity of the recording. So, if ever they want to, you know, reclaim their song from a bunch of terrible ads, or better yet, make it public that people are using a song called "Stupid American" to address millions of Americans, they have a host of people who own their album and know beyond a doubt that it's them performing their own song.

I think there's a limit of a few seconds or so that you can use without permission/payment.

The ad uses about 6 seconds of the song. I'm not sure if that would be enough to make a case or not.

In the case of Bridgeport Music Inc. v. Dimension Films the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the decision and ruled that the sampling was in violation of copyright law. Their argument was that with a sound recording, an owner of the copyright on a work had exclusive right to duplicate the work. Under this interpretation of the copyright law, usage of any section of a work, regardless of length, would be in violation unless the copyright owner gave permission.

This case was about N.W.A.’s song “100 Miles and Runnin’” and Funkadelic’s “Get Off Your Ass and Jam.” Essentially, N.W.A. sampled a two-second guitar chord from Funkadelic’s tune, lowered the pitch, then looped it five times in their song. This was all done without Funkadelic’s permission and with no compensation paid to the group.