I’ve read many a cease-and-desist letter, and I’ve even written a few, but I’ve never seen an IP demand issued personally on late-night TV. Here’s David Letterman, complaining to Joaquin Phoenix about the use of portions of Phoenix’s infamous 2009 Late Show appearance for a new movie. Many will recall Phoenix’ bizarre, bearded 2009 appearance, […]
A few days ago, I posted a YouTube video showing a viral ad from Newsday advertising its new iPad app. The video shows a guy using an iPad to swat a fly, with the iPad shattering. Cool! But the video is now down, and I wonder why. It wasn’t taken down by a DMCA take-down […]
Wired reports on Katie King’s excellent video Galactica: Sabotage, a kind of mash-up/homage to Spike Jones’ video for the Beastie Boys’ song Sabotage. The new video substitutes clips from the recently ended Battlestar Galactica series, but in a way that almost perfectly tracks the images from Jones’ original video.
Below is a side-by-side comparison of the original and new video.
I’m glad to see that nothing (yet) has been done to try to take down the video. The video also makes me wonder about what we mean when we use the term “mash-up.” As far as mash-ups go, Galactica: Sabotage is dissimilar to Danger Mouse’s mash-up classic Grey Album, which juxtaposed music samples from the Beatles’ White Album with vocals from Jay-Z’s Black Album. In such a mash-up, you simultaneously hear portions from both sources. It’s music with music.
However in form (but perhaps not function), Galactica: Sabotage is different. Same music, but new video clips substituted for the original. Perhaps such mash-ups by substitution are more like “smash-ups,” i.e., substitution + mash-up. Like the Grey Album, there’s still juxtaposition, but the juxtaposition is provided by what’s absent rather than by what’s present.
