http://www.detnews.com/2004/technology/0405/18/b02-155834.htm

Stupid Apple. What were they thinking??

Well, first off they featured a kid singing (rapping?) the lyrics to his song -- not using the music. I mean, count how many shows, films, commercials you can think of that features a person humming, singing, or even quoting the lyrics of a song? The fact that only several seconds worth of the kid singing the lyrics (not the original song in it's complete form) very well might fall under the fair use law -- but it might not. The problem is that there is no precident for this particular scenario, otherwise Apple's lawyers would have warned them about using the lyrics if there was a distinct possibility that they couldn't defend the matter in court. Unfortunately, in the U.S. there always seems to be a reason to get sued... :confused:

I personally don't believe it's infringement, but I'm not the one deciding over this case. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Man, Bad Ad on Apple's part, Ten year olds should not be coruppted by Eminem's artistic stylings, Man, that MMarshel Mathers LP, phew, So much Negitivity!!! Geez I hope Eminem doesn't go after the ten year old!!! Yes, Lose yourself was a song with a positive message, but that latest album was extremely watered down, and very Pop oriented, but that's only to be more Marketable.

Well, if Eminem's story checks out, then Apple could be on the losing side. If APPLE ASKED Eminem first, but went ahead with the decision DESPITE Eminem's rejection, then their ASKING Eminem could be taken to mean that APPLE THOUGHT that they SHOULD have got permission. If fair use was the precedent as you say, Manny, then why did Apple ask Eminem in the first place.

Why did they ask? Out of courtesy I would suspect, but again -- they didn't use his song, just the lyrics, there's a huge difference believe it or not. Why did they go ahead anyway? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they felt they could use a portion of the song's lyrics without issue.

The fact of the matter is, people / companies / organizations use music without permission all the time. Television stations in Ottawa play music during their breakfast morning show without so much as a peep about copyrights or permissions. In fact there was a political campaign in the U.S. that utilized copyright music within their campaign (15 seconds) Keep Thomson Governor Comm. v. Citizens for Gallen Comm., 457 F. Supp. 957 (D. N.H. 1978). with which the author sued and lost because they [the court] believed the song was used for the of political debate.

2LiveCrew borrowed the opening musical tag and the words (but not the melody) from the first line of the song Pretty Woman. The rap group had initially sought to pay for the right to use portions of the song but were rebuffed by the publisher who did not want Pretty Woman used in a rap song. The court felt they were safe in using a small portion of the original song where the 2 Live Crew version was essentially a different piece of music and the only similarity was a brief musical opening part and the opening line.

I'm not saying what Apple did was exactly smart -- they're hoping they can get away with a very fuzzy grey (or is it gray? ;) ) area of the Fair Use law of the U.S. since it's really one that can go either way depending on the judge or in some instances jury -- what they personally believe is right or wrong. Not exactly the best way to govern copyright material...

[ May 18, 2004, 12:10 PM: Message edited by: « MannyP Design » ]

Don't know how this one is going to play out.

The fact is Apple used a well known song from a well known artist to draw sales for their product. I'm pretty sure that the older dude singing My Generation didn't draw younger consumers/influencers to the market.

Whats funny is that in his new video for the D 12 group ( I think the name of the song is "my band" not sure. but in the video there is a product placemnt of an iPod mini near the begining.... LOL tongue.gif