# Question about copyright law

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-copyright-law/783621>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 2, 2017, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-copyright-law/783621 "2017-04-02T23:25:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-copyright-law/783621/21 "2017-04-05T07:38:34Z")

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Weird Al himself released his Lady Gaga parody online without permission. He thought he had permission when he made it, then, when he got the runaround, he went ahead and put it online. He’s since gotten permission straight from Gaga herself, who blamed the whole thing on her agent or similar.

Given that, and the huge number of parodies on YouTube without permission, I wonder if the information about fair use is current.

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**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-copyright-law/783621/22 "2017-04-05T09:38:53Z")

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> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> Great. You can put them up against the work of the other 500 million people who come up with parody versions of songs and share that pool of zero dollars people are willing to pay for them. (The one exception being Weird Al, as already mentioned.)

What; you object to my trying? :mad:

What the fuck do you care?

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**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2017, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-copyright-law/783621/23 "2017-04-05T10:56:05Z")

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> [@terentii](#):
>
> What; you object to my trying? :mad:
> 
> What the fuck do you care?

I’m not “objecting” to your idea, I’m saying that it is deeply naive. Parodies of TV theme songs is probably the lowest and easiest form of filking. Write them down, I’m sure you can google up fora where people share such things and might get the occasional “lol” out of it. But nobody, and I mean _nobody_ is going to pay you for it.

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