Glee Rips Off Jonathan Coulton

[darksakul]

Meh, Glee butchers every single song they sing anyway. If Mr. Johnny C (And Sir Mix-a-Lot) are lucky, they won't use it.

I whole heartedly agree. Not just Glee butchers and ripps off songs but they don't give credit to the original performers.

I am also raging mad over the fact teens think Established Artist stole from Glee.
Example "Why is Barbra Streisand singing a song from Glee"?
You stupid sad child, that video was recorded before you where born, before the briths of the cast of that show.
That there was the original song that Glee Stole.

OT: I really hope they cancel this show soon.

Amen

I had hoped to get in here before people began decrying Glee as the abomination that is ruining music/their childhood/other such ridiculous statements.

Well if the performances where good and the show's plot was not this contrived dribble that you expect out some kid's Slash Fan Fic. Fox goes on to cancels good shows and keep on showing garbage.

As you see above, its to the point now that kids think Glee songs are original and think that real musicians are stealing from Glee.

It'd be real nice if a lawsuit follows which wipes glee out altogether. Seriously, I've fucking had it with glee.

Can we just write a petition to wipe out Glee and bring back a show that was good like Arrested Development of Fire Fly.

Turns out it is possible to hate glee more than i already did. Who knew?

You could fire bomb the cast and crew of the show. Actually don't do it, unfortunately it is illegal.

I wish we could brake Glee into pieces and throw every piece in a fire. But then Fox would just return them having them singing 'Still Alive'.

I think go send a condolence letter with flowers to Ellen McLain (voice of GlaDOS) if the producers of Glee ever pull that shit off. Then help them find a good ex-KGB assassin therapist.

 

[Beautiful End]

I am also raging mad over the fact teens think Established Artist stole from Glee.
Example "Why is Barbra Streisand singing a song from Glee"?
You stupid sad child, that video was recorded before you where born, before the briths of the cast of that show.
That there was the original song that Glee Stole.

What's worrying is that I think kids are getting dumber. When I was a kid and I watched shows like that, I figured that they couldn't possibly create new songs each week, songs that other artists are singing on the radio, songs that just sound different from their style; there were just so many things that made me figure it out by logic. Also, my parents didn't allow me to be that dumb.
I'm beginning to sound like an old man but you get the point. We weren't that dumb.
Also...

Can we just write a petition to wipe out Glee and bring back a show that was good like Arrested Development of Fire Fly.

Oh, glob. I'd PAY them to get rid of Glee and bring back Firefly!
Seriously, how does that make any sense! Glee keeps going but Firefly didn't even last two seasons?! Where's the logic in that?

 

[Coach Morrison]

I think that was because Firefly didn't have nearly as many viewers and Glee is (rightly or wrongly) more accessible. It's mindless, simplistic fun. Firefly, on the other hand, is a Sci-Fi 'space cowboy' show with darker themes, a well written plot, and interesting and well-developed characters.

Also, if memory serves, when it debuted it was often changed to different times and days, and was competing with popular, well-established shows.

They also never aired the pilot, you know, the episode that introduces all the main characters and other trivial things. Fox is stupid with all their good shows.

 

[darksakul]

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Sad thing is Fox allows their written policy to dictate actions instead of the policy makers.

 

[ckam]

Well, that's pretty awful of those guys. They should have asked at least for something like this.

 

[marurder]

Glee who? Living in China does have some social benefits I guess.

 

[likalaruku]

The American entertainment industry doesn't care about the rights of intellectual property owners & creators, especially if they're not copyrighted or patented.

 

[AxelxGabriel]

You know... As much as I don't like the articles that don't really have ANYthingto do with gaming, Im ok with anything that talks about doing damage to really stupid shit in the western world. Like Glee.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

But they didn't have time to ask his permission: If they win regionals then it's straight on to sectionals and then a week later is semis, then semi-regionals, then regional-semis, then national lower-zone semis.

OT: I really hope they cancel this show soon.

I'm glad you are making the best out of a bad situation at least by referencing community.

 

[Tropicaz]

But they didn't have time to ask his permission: If they win regionals then it's straight on to sectionals and then a week later is semis, then semi-regionals, then regional-semis, then national lower-zone semis.

OT: I really hope they cancel this show soon.

I'm glad you are making the best out of a bad situation at least by referencing community.

Who hates Glee? Listen to how that sounds. Glee literally means, glee.

If this is real, how did absolutely no one notice that they were singing Johnny C's in trouble throughout the entire stealing music/recording process?

 

[Queen Michael]

I only needed to listen to five seconds of that clip to determine that it's the exact same arrangement. Though the minute after that, which I also listened to, didn't do anything to disprove this either.
Still... I wonder if it'll actually be on Glee. I won't be able to check, because I live in Sweden.

 

[TJC]

The American entertainment industry doesn't care about the rights of intellectual property owners & creators, especially if they're not copyrighted or patented.

except of course you want to stream an episode of one of their series when suddenly copyright turns into the holiest thing EVAR and justifies suing a hapless person's pants off.

in any case, iirc you can't enforce a copyright on just an arrangement (aka just the progression of chords or instruments used). It's painfully obvious that Glee ripped joco off with a perverted glee (pun not intended) but I'm not sure how much there is that legally can be done. Of course, human decency would dictate to give the original artist (even if he covered the song himself) proper credit and compensation but that would imply that anyone in Hollywood had any human decency :C

also, apparently I'm the only one who enjoyed glee at least a little bit before disliking it for being boring, badly-written tripe. Still, the hate is surprising.

 

[Jamous]

Well that's just not cool; they could've at least asked for permission. I really hope Coulton gets something out of this if Glee does use his arrangement, otherwise it's more than a bit dodgy.

 

[Abomination]

Talk about an amateur mistake.

You'd think a show that bases its episodes off doing covers of famous songs would, you know, get permission first?

 

[The Great JT]

Keep it classy, Glee! Oh wait, they've never been classy. It should be more like..."Keep on sucking, Glee, you'll kill music yet!"

 

[BoredAussieGamer]

But they didn't have time to ask his permission: If they win regionals then it's straight on to sectionals and then a week later is semis, then semi-regionals, then regional-semis, then national lower-zone semis.

OT: I really hope they cancel this show soon.

What the hell are regionals?

OT: If they ever dare cover Still alive, I will get Agent 47's ass on every single one involved in making that song very depressed.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Just out of curiosity, are there any musicians who can tell me whether or not the Glee songwriters might have accidentally stumbled into the same arrangement (i.e. whether it is the logical choice for turning "Baby Got Back" into an acapella pop song)?

Not by a long shot. The original was a rap, so the melody, guitar part, etc. were all 100% Coulton's original work. Pretty much the only thing intact from Sir Mix-A-Lot's original song is the lyrics.

For a comparison point, imagine if someone decided to paint a picture of Jesus and the apostles at the last supper. The chances of them accidentally recreating Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper without being familiar with it are about the same as accidentally recreating Coulton's arrangement.

P.S. Thanks

Probably not. Creating a vocal jazz arrangement of a pop song isn't a particularly complicated process, but JC wrote a straight-out BALLAD. It's not a question of having a similar chord progression or a suspiciously similar melody, JC's arrangement is explicitly a pardoy of an up-tempo song, FAR from what Glee usually does with its covers and pretty far from what any vocal jazz arranger would usually arrive at when doing Baby Got Back. This is pretty explicitly a case of plagiarism (though, like the Escapist lawyer crew, I don't know whether or not it's technically copyright infringement to rip off a cover; I think it would probably have to depend on whether or not the cover arrangement itself was registered or not).

(Qualifications: Organ Performance major at the University of Michigan, way too many years of choir, composition, and two unfortunate seasons viewed of Glee)

EDIT: For comparison, here's the original. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY84MRnxVzo]. If you were to do an arrangement you'd have to base it off the Mix-a-Lot's bass riff, which is C-C-Eb-Eb-Db-Db-Eb-Db (repeat), in straight eighth notes. The song's entire harmonic content is that bass riff and the quick synth chords, which are all C-minor, so as an arranger you have available to you C-minor with a lowered second. Now, I could come up with a pretty sweet vocal jazz arrangment of Baby Got Back out of that, but it is NOTHING like the Coulton arrangement and you would have to go through several wormholes to get to the same place; Coulton's is EXPLICITLY a musical parody.

Thank you ladies and/or gentlemen. Now that I know it's stolen for sure, I can vent my rage wholeheartedly.