By the way, for those of you who do not want to watch Glee to see the sequence (which features a really lame dance routine and a "band" including an electric guitar, even though there is none in the track), it's available here:
Watch it and cringe. Also note that they removed the entire verse with the lyric "Johnny C's in trouble," to make absolutely sure that they gave @JoCo no credit or mention whatsoever on air.
This is probably my final blog post on the matter, but here's the slowed down versions to compare the banjo/mandolin timings. I also include the fret noise and the quack.
Paul... any way can you easily check the quack artifact on your center-canceled karaoke track, and see if it happens to look like a sharp 4 kHz spike? That seems to be the frequency in the Glee track, and now I'm dying to know if its the same.
I like 'Looks like Glee's in trouble' and 'Glee's in lots of trouble', I don't think mentioning the character's (or producer's, etc) name would be as good because not everbody's been following Glee or the controversy closely enough to instantly recognise the names.
The quack remnant (if that is exactly what it is) on this track sounds to me like a camera shutter.
If it is not precisely the same as yours, it might be possible that the differences are due to using different versions of whatever MP3 decoding software we used, before doing the center kill?
It allows you to gleefully steal an item from your enemy's inventory and claim it as your own, but it should be used carefully, because an enemy with many Fans of Coolness may exploit it to take exposure from you (so their Exposure stat becomes more positive and you end up with negative Exposure) so that you are at risk of dying of exposure.
Well, obviously Glee thought that the song "I Don't Know How To Love Him," from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Jesus Christ, Superstar, was too complicated, because they used it in the same episode and cut out the bridge, which is the climax of the song. Awful.
This just in: "Glee Performs Full Orchestra Cover Of 'Louie Louie' And Is Slapped With Class-Action Copyright Lawsuit From US High School Marching Bands."
This thread is a great example of why it's fun to come here!
I am just now listening to the second time Jonathan appeared on "A Bit of a Chat With Ken Plume" where they are joking about a JoCo TV show. They'd have a new song each week, written by uncredited songwriters who are paid a nickel a song. It's great exposure! It can be found here. The link to the . The relevant part to the Glee fiasco is at about 33 min. Little did he know . . .
I think it would be awesome if all the artists who have been victimized by Glee got together and released an album together.
I love JoCo and hopefully he is at least getting some new real fans/sales out of all this, but to me the saddest part of this story is all the other artists who have been victimized and didn't have the awesome fan base and celebrity connections to make this much noise.
It would be nice to see them get some real 'exposure' as well.
@Angelastic Maybe I should have written, JC, Superstar?
Oh, and "Victims of Glee" is my Insane Clown Posse cover band.
In the meantime, comedy rap artist Devo Spice -- another good candidate as a cruise performer -- skewers Glee in his own must-listen "Baby Got Back" parody, titled "JoCo Got Jacked."
Oh neat, thanks for the heads-up, @BrettGlass; that one hadn't shown up in my podcast subs yet, and I probably wouldn't have noticed it for another few days.
Segment begins at about 36:00; discussion of Glee starts at 48:00. He declines to discuss legal matters, but says he believes that, in the future, social media will be vital to making money as a musician. Best quote:
"Do not underestimate a cat like Jonathan, with a million followers. He will wax that ass!" -- Sir Mix-A-Lot
Speaking of forensics: Just downloaded the Glee MP3 that's on offer on Amazon starting today -- not because I wanted to give them money, but so that I can work with a track that has fewer compression artifacts than one ripped from YouTube or converted between formats multiple times. The embedded information in the MP3 lists the "Composer" as "Anthony L. Ray" (Sir Mix-A-Lot), and in the "Copyright" field it says "(P) 2013 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation". Interesting. While Mix-A-Lot wrote the words, he didn't "compose" one bar of the music, any more than Schiller (author of the poem "Ode to Joy") wrote Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
"In the spirit of all that is Glee, can I ask you to take a minute to write to erica.keane *at* foxtv.com , Fox's VP of Media Relations, and tell her that you, as a fan, feel Fox should give Jonathan Coulton, and other artists, credit?"
In all fairness, you do have to hand it to Glee, they were not wrong about the exposure. Not sure it is quite what they intended but JoCo's name is certainly out and about. I've found more than one or two sympathetic 'Gleeks' as well who don't like what has happened when they've seen the evidence.
I have to say, even if I wasn't a massive JoCo fan who was prepared to fly round the world to be on a boat with him, I would still be happy with what is happening if it is going to make Maxwell squirm a bit.
Also to everyone who has posted something to do with audio analysis here, thank you. It would be just about bearable what has happened knowing that we've proved (as a group obviously not me!) there seems to be hideous wrong doing whilst raising JoCo's profile but knowing that we might have hit a point where evidence could be compelling in court...
Well let's just say I've always bet on David shall we so I feel really happy for Jonathan right now. I hope he gets his acoustic forensic specialist to work this and come to the same conclusions and Fox have to pay him lots of moneys.
Also, you guys are as previously mentioned all awesome!
@Craig I saw a post somewhere on the internet at the beginning of this ordeal where someone emailed Erica Keane and actually got a response. It was a 'No comment.' response, but it was also forwarded to a few other executives within the company. I emailed her later and didn't get any response, but that post was proof that she is actually getting the emails... assuming they haven't set up filters for 'Coulton' yet. I think annoying the Glee producers' bosses is a good way to keep the pressure up.
I've also been emailing some media outlets, encouraging them to cover the story. I contacted Ars Technica, since this seems like a natural fit for them. They are owned by the same company as Wired, and most of their audience is probably already aware of the story, but they can do some good in-depth copyright articles. The longer this stays in the spotlight, the better.
Given the growing evidence that they copied actual audio, and not just the arrangement I also think part of the silence from Fox might be fear that they are not as legally immune as they claim. If they were 100% confident in their legal position, I think we might have heard something from them by now.
@iadk I hope Ars will cover it -- that would be cool!
When I first started looking into the technical aspects of the audio I was very frustrated, because with lossy files it is impossible to find completely matching audio waveforms. I have been a bit nervous because I really didn't want being the guy who successfully convinced myself, and other people, to believe something that wasn't true. But a lot of people have now listened to the tracks and especially once they are "stripped naked" with the center-cancellation, it's not like we're listening for some subtle 1-second sample or something.
And now, "Insane" Ian Bonds -- who, like Devo Spice, is a regular at The FuMP (listen to his great Super Mario-themed Bruno Mars parody "Bob-Bomb") -- takes Devo Spice's rap parody and Coultonizes it.
@iadk When the story first broke I reported it to three news sites: Brooklyn Vegan, The AV Club and Pitchfork. All three have covered "sound-alikes" before so I thought it would help bring exposure to it. BV wrote it up right away, the AV Club were already aware and posted a few hours later, Pitchfork did not.
@aliceandstuff I sent Pitchfork an email, too. Getting Pitchfork to acknowledge JoCo is almost as hard as getting Glee/Fox TV to. If you aren't some bearded folksy rock star from Brooklyn, then they just don't want to know about you. (Yes I realize the irony of my previous statement.)
Tonight, on the FuMP podcast, Devo Spice revealed that he'd just finished a video to go with his NSFW parody rap "JoCo Got Jacked." Here it is (note the slightly altered "Glee" logo with raised middle finger):
Note that someone from Fox is posting nasty things about JoCo under the Forbes article. As would be expected, their only "social media strategy" is to troll.
Comments
No idea, I just checked this site: http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/songs/ ; there it's still on 84, no idea if they have any IP-based country thingie going on...
edit: Country was / is set to USA
What would JoCo do with RHPS?
By the way, for those of you who do not want to watch Glee to see the sequence (which features a really lame dance routine and a "band" including an electric guitar, even though there is none in the track), it's available here:
http://www.metatube.com/en/videos/169157/Glee-Baby-Got-Back-from-Sadie-Hawkins-FULL-Performance-2013-PREMIERE/
Watch it and cringe. Also note that they removed the entire verse with the lyric "Johnny C's in trouble," to make absolutely sure that they gave @JoCo no credit or mention whatsoever on air.
http://refactoringmybrain.blogspot.com/2013/01/coultons-audio-tracks-part-2.html
Paul... any way can you easily check the quack artifact on your center-canceled karaoke track, and see if it happens to look like a sharp 4 kHz spike? That seems to be the frequency in the Glee track, and now I'm dying to know if its the same.
Too complicated?
Edit: on second reading, I read, 'Jesus Christ, Superstar!' as an exclamation expressing exasperation at the stars of the show.
I am just now listening to the second time Jonathan appeared on "A Bit of a Chat With Ken Plume" where they are joking about a JoCo TV show. They'd have a new song each week, written by uncredited songwriters who are paid a nickel a song. It's great exposure! It can be found here. The link to the . The relevant part to the Glee fiasco is at about 33 min. Little did he know . . .
Oh, and "Victims of Glee" is my Insane Clown Posse cover band.
In the meantime, comedy rap artist Devo Spice -- another good candidate as a cruise performer -- skewers Glee in his own must-listen "Baby Got Back" parody, titled "JoCo Got Jacked."
The Great Luke Ski and The Consortium of Genius (well, two members of the group) are also on this cut.
http://www.kuow.org/post/politics-federal-immigration-reform
Segment begins at about 36:00; discussion of Glee starts at 48:00. He declines to discuss legal matters, but says he believes that, in the future, social media will be vital to making money as a musician. Best quote:
"Do not underestimate a cat like Jonathan, with a million followers. He will wax that ass!" -- Sir Mix-A-Lot
If anyone else wants to give it a shot:
http://pitchfork.com/contact/
Also, I don't know who's in trouble, but you could dial 1-900 F-YOU-GLEE.