stumbled on this while reading up on the various reactions to SOPA/PIPA being shelved (yaaaaay! fuck lamar smith!).
Particularly interesting about this is the fact that this video was (apparently) pulled from youtube on the grounds that it violated copyright laws (guessing this was atlantic records complaining, i can’t imagine that ‘Lo hisself would go after a video or website dedicated to providing material for ASL speakers and deaf children). I’m not well versed in legalese, but I think a pretty convincing argument could be made that despite the fact that the original Gnarls Barkley “Crazy” in its entirety is the soundtrack to the video, this interpretation of said work is 1: original; 2: educational; and 3: does not in any way diminish the original work’s value or the copyright holder’s ability to make money from the original work.
I don’t feel like grandstanding against SOPA right now, but I think that this pretty clearly illustrates that overzealous and unwarranted copyright protection is rampant already, and its a little shameful that in this case children with disabilities were the only ones who would have potentially lost something valuable in the process.
(Source: techdirt.com)
