I think it's important to realize exactly what Fox is (regularly) doing here.
Fox/Glee finds a popular song. Fox/Glee wants to do a cover. Fox/Glee searches the internet to find a popular cover of the song. Fox/Glee does their cover in the same style, by having musicians play/record a note-for-note re-creation of that popular cover. Fox/Glee pays mechanical royalties to the original songwriter/publishing-company, pays absolutely nothing to the arranger that came up with the stylized cover version, and refuses to acknowledge them.
This is 100% legal, no matter how creative the arranger was in coming up with their cover. If the cover artist was granted a mechanical license, the only copyright protection they were granted was to their sound recording.
This is also not the first time it has happened. In episode 1, Glee's cover of Don't Stop Believing was practically identical to a famous a cappella arrangement (from a college a cappella group that released a cd and won some awards from it). There was another "regionals" number that was largely identical to another similarly famous a cappella arrangement.
It's lousy behavior and I think they deserve every bit of blowback for being poor citizens, but it is technically legal.
(Big asterisk: There is reason to believe that Fox actually took Coulston's karaoke version of BGB and recorded vocals over it. This, in contrast, would be a copyright infringement.)
Well, the music industry has threatened lawsuits before over very similar "fair use" by consumers. This is a pretty obscure piece of knowledge, but some years ago a web site called Powertab hosted very detailed transcriptions of guitar arrangements for lots of rock/metal/pop bands. The transcription was done by ear and provided very detailed scores for thousands of songs. It was a very good source for learning some more complicated arrangements. However, the Music Publishers' Association threatened to sue over alleged copyright violation and the site's administrators took the site down.
This happened in 2006, and I don't know what has happened since then. My impression was that the move killed off the entire PowerTab transcription community. This case was never tried in court and is very similar to what this story describes. What strikes me is the double standard.
Arguably, the only thing derivative about JoCo's cover is the lyrics. Hypothetically, if he had released it first with original lyrics (or as an instrumental), and then released his Baby Got Back as a mashup, would that afford him copyright protection for the composition? If so, is such a work-around truly legally necessary?
Some prankster could take Coulton's karaoke, re-create it by plunking in notes, sing different lyrics, and then what? They'd have the copyright on a brand new original song? And then if someone else did the exact same thing, they'd owe royalties to that prankster, even if the lyrics were changed again? I understand the basic principles, but that's where it starts to bend my mind.
1) Glee couldn't find a way to add any creative touches to the arrangement and actually make it their own. (They even included the duck!)
2) Glee doesn't acknowledge where they get their musical arrangements for cover songs
3) Through all of this, Sir Mix-A-Lot is the only one that really sees any money (as the writer)
“The words are the important thing. Don’t worry about tunes. Take a tune, sing high when they sing low, sing fast when they sing slow, and you’ve got a new tune.” — Woody Guthrie
The first time the internet got upset about this was when the Glee version of the song got posted to various sites (including iTunes) in advance of the show being broadcast. That FIRST version of the song included the duck sound and the line "Johnny C's in trouble". Lots of people noticed it and blogged about it and as a result, the network appears to have done a quick editing job to delete those exact elements from the version that broadcast - they left off one whole verse to do it.
>This is 100% legal, no matter how creative the arranger was in coming up with their cover. If the cover artist was granted a mechanical license, the only copyright protection they were granted was to their sound recording.
You know, people keep saying this, but I haven't seen any citations of it.
The reason everyone covers Cale's version of "Hallelujah" is not licensing, it's that his arrangement is so compelling that he made it impossible to hear the song any other way. If he hadn't, few would know it existed. Cale reinvented that song. In the annals of aesthetic justice he gets a cowriting credit beside Cohen.
John Cale is a classic under-the-radar genius. Drastically reworking songs has been one of his specialties for decades; he did it to "Heartbreak Hotel" twice. But "Hallelujah" was a freakish success. It used to bug me that no one ever mentioned Cale when that song came up (only Jeff Buckley, who copied him) but that has finally changed.
What screwed Cale is that his version was replaced on the Shrek soundtrack by Rufus Wainwright's carbon copy, because the record label wanted to promote Wainright at the time. Your point applies to that maneuver.
Curious factoid: of the few covers of "Hallelujah" that existed before Cale reworked it, one was by Bob Dylan. It's easy to see why Dylan would have singled that one out, but still, kind of amazing.
Either the karaoke version or the multitrack version he released...
The backing track has at least been remastered (EQ and heavy compression), and probably remixed (if it isn't actually a note for note reproduction, which would suck for Coulton).
Seriously, I suppose there's a market for terrible "mash-ups" considering the DJ scene at local clubs, but I don't understand how fans of the original songs can appreciate Glee's novelty-based compositions. Mash-ups should work based on harmonious choices, not song title, band name, or plot device.
Fox/Glee finds a popular song. Fox/Glee wants to do a cover. Fox/Glee searches the internet to find a popular cover of the song. Fox/Glee does their cover in the same style, by having musicians play/record a note-for-note re-creation of that popular cover. Fox/Glee pays mechanical royalties to the original songwriter/publishing-company, pays absolutely nothing to the arranger that came up with the stylized cover version, and refuses to acknowledge them.
This is 100% legal, no matter how creative the arranger was in coming up with their cover. If the cover artist was granted a mechanical license, the only copyright protection they were granted was to their sound recording.
This is also not the first time it has happened. In episode 1, Glee's cover of Don't Stop Believing was practically identical to a famous a cappella arrangement (from a college a cappella group that released a cd and won some awards from it). There was another "regionals" number that was largely identical to another similarly famous a cappella arrangement.
It's lousy behavior and I think they deserve every bit of blowback for being poor citizens, but it is technically legal.
(Big asterisk: There is reason to believe that Fox actually took Coulston's karaoke version of BGB and recorded vocals over it. This, in contrast, would be a copyright infringement.)