YouTube Dhimitude

YouTube pulled this claiming copyright infringement. As a fan of Weird Al Yankovic I know that is pure BS, PhD.* The Fair Use Doctrine (that has been upheld by the Supreme Court) makes it clear that it is legal & permissible to use copyrighted material under the fair use doctrine for purposes of parody. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, “the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair [could include] criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.”

Caroline Glick, who edits the Hebrew language Latma website, which originated the video, said in an article for Israel National News: "While it's true that the copyright to “We Are the World” is owned by Warner/Chappell, copyright experts we advised with before posting the song told us in no uncertain terms that we were within our rights to use the song because we did so in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine." (See her post here with full copy of Fairness Doctrine.)

H/T: Robert @ Sorry,all the clever names are taken. (YouTube removes ‘We Con the World’ video.)

* Old higher learning joke. You know what BS is. MS = more of the same. PhD = piled high & deep. & that is what You Tube's copyright claim is, BS PhD.