All Things Digital

What a slimy mess the “Here Comes Another Bubble” is leaving in its wake as it travels all over the Web.

Today, Daryl Lang of PDNPulse, a blog from Photo District News, reported that it contacted more photographers whose pictures were used in the popular Web 2.0-mocking video by the San Francisco-based singing group, the Richter Scales.

Four of them responded that they also did not like the use of their work one bit, some objecting to the credit given, others to the non-payment and still others to not being asked for permission to use their photos.

Some objected to all three issues, all of which have to do with “fair use” under copyright law.

“I’m totally against the unauthorized use of my image,” said Ramona Rosales, whose picture of TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington was used in the video and who said she was going to ask that the photo be removed, to PDNPulse. “I was never asked permission nor have I received any compensation for its use; furthermore I don’t feel it is justified simply because they gave me credit.”

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So, it turns out YouTube actually can protect copyright!

In this case, that’s too bad, since the video-sharing service just took down the very popular music video parody called “Here Comes Another Bubble,” by San Francisco’s Richter Scales, which we first posted here and which has taken off like wildfire around the Web.

The video opens, in fact, with a BoomTown video of an interview with Facebook investor Peter Thiel, who talks about there not being a bubble (of course there is, Pete!).

But we did not mind the use of a snippet of it without permission, since it seemed like fair use in a parody.

So what’s the problem? Well, someone sent YouTube a take-down request and the company honored it without contacting the Richter Scales first.

Here’s the video:

By way of background, the hysterical video is sung to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and perfectly nails the Web 2.0 mania better than pretty much everyone in Silicon Valley.

I ran into Richter Scales’ Tom Shields at a conference this morning in Mountain View, Calif., and he told me about the video takedown by YouTube of the popular “Here Comes Another Bubble.”

The music video parody by the San Francisco singing group has wowed the Web.

I posted about the removal here.

Shields defends the use of all material in the very funny video, noting it is a satire and they are not making any money it, pointing to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s explanation of fair use rules in place:

A Wide Berth for Transformative, Creative Uses: Copyright owners are within their rights to pursue nontransformative verbatim copying of their copyrighted materials online. However, where copyrighted materials are employed for purposes of comment, criticism, reporting, parody, satire, or scholarship, or as the raw material for other kinds of creative and transformative works, the resulting work will likely fall within the bounds of fair use.”

Here’s an interview with Shields that BoomTown did today (and posted on YouTube!):