YouTube Takes Down Chanukkah Parody Of Old Town Road... Because It Infringes On A Date?
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The Maccabeats, as I have just discovered, is an Orthodox Jewish a capella group that specializes in Jewish-themed parodies of hit songs (pretty much all a cappella groups seem to do a bunch of parodies). Their latest video, for this year's Chanukkah, was a parody of both Billie Eilish's Bad Guy (here: "Pan Fry") and Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road." It's pretty entertaining. Anyway, on Tuesday, they got a takedown notice from YouTube, saying that the video is no longer allowed to be shown for copyright violations:If you want to see the actual video, it does still appear to be up via Facebook (which, bizarrely, doesn't seem to have an embed option?!)There's always some risk with parody songs that someone jumps in and claims copyright, and that's possibly what happened here, though there are some oddities in the information YouTube provided to the Maccabeats, as noted in the tweet above. First, it says that the infringing part is from 1:15 to 1:48 in the video, which is roughly the part in which they're parodying "Old Town Road." So, it's probably some sort of Old Town Road claim. But... instead of saying that, it says the date in the part where it shows "Content used." That's weird.Then, for "copyright owners" it says "Mako." Now, there are some fascinating stories to be told about the copyright for "Old Town Road" including that Trent Reznor actually gets a songwriting credit on it, because it samples 34 Ghosts IV from the Ghosts I-IV album (side note: Ghosts I-IV was part of what inspired my somewhat infamous 2009 Midem presentation, which caused some buzz among the recording industry). However, as far as I can tell, among the various people and companies with a copyright claim to Old Town Road, there is no "Mako."Oddly, there is an Israeli entertainment company called Mako, which offers video on demand content, and is one of the most visited websites in Israel. Given that, it's possible that the Maccabeats song appeared on Mako, and was then claimed on YouTube because of that.Either way, the Maccabeats seem quite reasonably pissed off. The song is about Channukkah, and we're about halfway through it this year, so they're on the verge of losing out on the biggest market for their song. Isn't copyright great?Update: And, it appears that YouTube has decided to put the video back up:
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posted at: 12:00am on 27-Dec-2019
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Federal Court Blocks Unconstitutional Arkansas Law That Prevents Plant-Based Food Companies From Using Meat Words
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Another case of nonexistent "customer confusion" is being litigated. Tofurky, the maker of several vegetable-based products, sued the state of Arkansas over its bogus [squints at Legiscan in disbelief] "Act To Require Truth In Labeling Of Agricultural Products That Are Edible By Humans" law.The law, written at the behest of meat and dairy lobbyists, claims customers are "confused" by non-meat products that use meat-like words in their product descriptions. A law similar to this passed in Mississippi was recently found unconstitutional by a federal court, resulting in legislators rewriting the law to make it less, um, unlawful.The Arkansas law has an added bonus not found elsewhere: wording targeting the use of phrase "cauliflower rice." Why? Because Arkansas is home to the nation's largest rice industry.Not that any consumers were actually confused. If they had been, they would have approached lawmakers. Instead, the entities approaching legislators were entrenched interests claiming shoppers were too stupid to figure out veggie burgers don't contain meat.That law is now on death's door, having been savaged by a federal judge calling bullshit on the state's willingness to violate the First Amendment to make certain industries happy. (via AgWeek)The ruling [PDF] blocks the state from enforcing the law while the rest of the particulars are sorted out, but it seems clear there's no way the state can salvage this terrible legislation. Tofurky pointed out the law contains no exceptions for makers of plant-based meat alternatives, meaning the company has almost zero chance of ever complying fully with the law, even if it retools its packaging (at an estimated cost of $1,000,000) and does everything it can to keep Arkansas consumers from viewing ads targeting shoppers in states not saddled with idiotic laws.The state argued that Tofurky's use of words like "sausage," "kielbasa," "burger," and "ham" confuse consumers despite Tofurky also using words like "white quinoa," "all vegan," "plant-based," and a big "V" to distinguish its vegetarian and vegan products from the meats they emulate. The court says this argument is ridiculous.The State appears to believe that the simple use of the word “burger,” “ham,” or “sausage” leaves the typical consumer confused, but such a position requires the assumption that a reasonable consumer will disregard all other words found on the label.[...]That assumption is unwarranted. The labels in the record evidence include ample terminology to indicate the vegan or vegetarian nature of the products. Additionally, “[t]here is no contention that any [consumer or potential consumer] was actually misled or deceived by” Tofurky’s packaging, labeling, or marketing. It also pulls a delicious quote from a 2013 decision dealing with a different state's attempt to carve out exceptions to the First Amendment on behalf of favored industries.“Under Plaintiffs’ logic, a reasonable consumer might also believe that veggie bacon contains pork, that flourless chocolate cake contains flour, or that e-books are made out of paper.” The court says the law is likely to be found unconstitutional. The state had other options to use to limit consumer confusion but decided to specifically craft a law that harmed plant-based food manufacturers and their free speech rights.Tofurky identifies several in-effect federal and state laws directed at prohibiting deceptive labeling and marketing of food products, and consumer products more generally, with which Tofurky contends its food labeling complies; these laws have not been enforced against Tofurky’s labels based on the record evidence before the Court (Dkt. Nos. 1, ¶¶ 21-33; 15, at 11- 12). There also is no convincing argument as to why each of these laws is ineffective at policing the alleged deceptive or confusing practices the State purports to target. Further, as opposed to the prohibition in Act 501, the State could require more prominent disclosures of the vegan nature of plant-based products, create a symbol to go on the labeling and packaging of plant-based products indicating their vegan composition, or require a disclaimer that the products do not contain meat if further laws are deemed necessary to advance its stated purpose. Because it went this route, the new law may as well have never been written, massaged, and put into effect. The state is blocked from enforcing it until Tofurky finishes succeeding on its First Amendment claims. Yeah, I'm writing it that way because that's the only way this is going to turn out. The state doesn't have a compelling argument up its sleeve that's going to reverse what's seen in this injunction order.If legislators are going to close their minds and open their ears when lobbying dollars come calling, they're going to end up creating stupid crap that puts Constitutional rights on the back burner to allow a few powerful incumbents to make a few extra dollars. Fortunately, the courts (for the most part) don't care who's donating to whose re-election campaign.
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