Who owns a remix?

If you don’t know Auto-Tune the News, it’s a series of comedy remix videos by The Gregory Brothers. Most recently, they remixed this local news clip of Antoine Dodson, speaking out about his sister’s sexual assault:

into the viral hit “Bed Intruder Song”:

Now, they’re selling the song on iTunes, and it’s flying off the virtual shelves. According to Wired.com, The Gregory Brothers sold 10,571 copies of “Bed Intruder Song” on iTunes in the first two days. What’s more, the tune has made it onto the Billboard Hot 100. In a classy move, The Gregory Brothers split the profits 50/50 with Antoine Dodson:

We’re really breaking “unintentional singing” ground, so we’re trying to set precedents by making it so that Antoine, or whoever that artist might be in the future, has a stake not only as an artist but as a co-author of the song. It’s like you said: He wrote the lyrics, he’s the one who put it out there. What we’re doing on iTunes and on any other sales, we’re splitting the revenue after it gets through Apple down the middle. And that [also applies] if we ever license the song for TV or a movie. Whatever happens to the song, he has a 50 percent writing credit.

Though this is an American example, I think this story is particularly interesting to Canadians, in light of new proposed copyright legislation, which includes a “YouTube clause that allows people to mash up media under certain circumstances, as long as it’s not for commercial gain.” From Bill C-32:

It is not an infringement of copyright for an individual to use an existing work or other subject-matter … in the creation of a new work or other subject-matter in which copyright subsists … if the use of, or the authorization to disseminate, the new work or other subject-matter is done solely for non-commercial purposes

So, C-32 would make it OK for me to remix a local news report, so long as the remix was non-commercial (or covered by C-32’s parody or satire exceptions). But what does “non-commercial” even mean? At what point would a Canadian version of the The Gregory Brothers’ videos become commercial? Would it be after they get millions of views on YouTube? After they start selling the songs on iTunes? And what about the advertising that YouTube runs against “non-commercial” videos? Non-commercial means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Just read Creative Commons: Defining Noncommercial.

And when it comes to ownership, it’s incredibly muddy to me. My non-commercial remix may be a new work, and I may hold the copyright to it, but am I suddenly infringing copyright if my remix becomes a YouTube hit and the cheques start rolling in? In that situation, what becomes of the Antoine Dodsons of the world? The Gregory Brothers are splitting their piece of the pie with him, but do they have to? Should they have to?

Memetics and remix culture are the lifeblood of the web, and are constantly evolving. The first Auto-Tune the News video showed up 16 months ago. 16 months ago! Can legislation ever catch up with such a wildly moving target?

If you have opinions or (fingers crossed) pointers to some clarification around remixes and ownership under C-32, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Why I don’t want you to tag me on Facebook Places

This morning, Facebook rolled out Places, their location-based service that lets users “check in” to places in the real world. Think Foursquare, Gowalla, et al, but on a much larger scale. Places is only available in the US right now, but still, that’s 131 million users.

Here’s what I find particularly scary about this announcement: Facebook Place Tagging. From Jolie O’Dell at Mashable (emphasis mine):

You can add places, check in to places that already exist, and tag people who are with you. If you’re checking in for a group, make sure you tag your friends before you checkin, yourself. For example, I added my house and checked in there. I then opened the Places page for a nearby sushi restaurant, tagged my boyfriend, and checked us both in there.

Wait a minute! Other people can check me in? Yup. According to Facebook’s FAQ:

You can tag your friends who are with you at any given location as long as you are checked-in and they have set their privacy settings so they can be tagged.

The default settings “for any check-ins are to have them visible only to your Facebook friends.” Facebook’s privacy settings let you opt out of Places sharing completely, but as The Guardian points out, if you don’t opt-out, “you will be asked to agree” the first time a friend tries to check you in.

It’s not hard to imagine how this could become incredibly problematic. Personally, I don’t want anyone but me to have the power to share my location. Remember what happened to Plazes CEO Felix Peterson? Or just consider any number of potentially embarrassing Foursquare check-ins. Now, consider that all of your Facebook friends have the ability to create those awkward location-based snafus for you.

Two predictions:

• It’s only be a matter of time before we see a blog dedicated to “embarrassing third-party Facebook Place check-ins”
• The alibi fabrication industry is about to blow right up

Ampeg Micro-VR in action

As a guy who loves the sound of small Ampeg amplifiers (I play through a B-100R), I’ve been curious to hear how the “cute” new Ampeg Micro-VR actually sounds. Now, thanks to The Swell Season and the Onion AV Club, I know:

The Swell Season covers Neutral Milk Hotel

That’s Joe Doyle (from The Frames) on bass.

(via Merlin)

My password is bigger than your password

My password is bigger than your password. And that’s a good thing.

According to researchers at Georgia Tech, GPU-accelerated brute-force password cracking techiques are getting really good:

“Right now we can confidently say that a seven-character password is hopelessly inadequate,” said Mr [Richard] Boyd, “and as GPU power continues to go up every year, the threat will increase.”

Instead, Boyd recommends “a 12-character combination of upper and lower case letters, symbols and digits.”

That’s good advice. But alas, we live in a world where 75% of the population uses the exact same password for their email and social networking accounts, and the 5 most popular passwords go like this:

1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. Password
5. iloveyou

Personally, I use 1Password[1. There are many other tools that do this. See: RoboForm, KeePass, MyPasswordSafe, Password Agent, Password Safe, Sxipper, Passpack, TurboPasswords, etc.] to generate and manage strong passwords, and I love it. I have to say, there’s a special warm, fuzzy, geeky feeling that goes along with knowing you’re using good passwords. It’s not unlike the feeling I get when I know my family photos are redundantly backed up.

My next CBC tech column (Tuesday on CBC R1 afternoon shows across Canada) is all about generating good passwords. It’s good advice to hear anytime, but if you use the same password for more than one site, seriously, change it now.

The iPad and textbook piracy

CourseSmart has been all over the tech blogs today, with its new iPad app and claims that its catalog contains 90% of “core textbooks.” I definitely understand the appeal of storing and using textbooks on a tablet device: no books to carry around or forget at home. Everything’s there on one device, complete with bookmarks and annotations.

But here’s what I’m really wondering: aside from legit textbook sources like CourseSmart, how will the new breed of tablet computers affect ebook piracy? There’s certainly no shortage of textbooks on Bittorrent sites, Usenet indexes, and Gigapedia.