1/2/2006 column updated?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

In regards to the column shown today (1/2/2006)http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_011.html - was it updated at some point and the update not noted? I ask this because the article references “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Smells Like Nirvana and It’s All About the Pentiums, neither of which had been released by the date of the article - 26-Apr-1991. …Pentiums wasn’t released until 1999, while …Nirvana was released in 1992.

Is it common for the wisdom of the Great One to be tampered with in this manner?

2

Sometimes, indeed, Ed Zotti OK’s an update line or two, when called for.

3

But mostly classics stay classics . … as published. Even the updates that were published in the books with the original columns are classics; they were updated when the books were published. A few were also updated when we ran them on AOL.

We do try to cull the ones that are clearly out of date and we take them off the site, but sometimes one gets through.

TubaDiva

4

Well, you know yoou can’t have a really good discussion of the Anacreontic Society without a at least couple of Anacreonisms.

:smiley:

5

The Weird Al song references also don’t fit the topic of the article very well. Weird Al’s songs are parodies that are intentionally made to be as similar to the original as possible. I don’t think anyone was suggesting that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written as a parody of “To Anacreon in Heaven.”

Also, IANAL, but I believe that the line “even Weird Al knows, to recycle melodies today requires the use of finely-honed musical skills and the services of an excellent lawyer” is somewhat misleading. From FindLaw:

I guess that from now on I’ll believe it when SD errors are blamed on the editing.

6

Also (as any Yankovic fan knows), Al always asks permission (Q3&4) to use any of the songs he parodies, so he’s not going to need very much on the lawyer front.

7

What part of the word “joke” do you all not comprehend. :smiley:

8

k…I just don’t get k…

9

True, but there’s enough ignorance of copyright law floating around that we don’t need to spread it via a quip that, honestly, should simply be cut from the article.

There isn’t enough space to do it right (to say that parody is fair use but in the US people can sue you for anything, so you might need a lawyer until the first actual judge to hear the case throws it on its ass) and the way it’s done now gives the wrong impression (that parody is somehow legally shady). Plus, it isn’t amusing in any way, shape, or form. Cut it.