I had a parody removed....from Amiright.com - one of over a thousand I've written. Amiright, a US-hosted website, received a cease and desist notice from Warner Chappell, a US company, to take down the parody based on British law.
We caved to the pressure because even though there was not a hope in hell of WC (now there's an appropriate pair of initials if ever there was one) winning, it would have cost both me and the chap who runs amiright time and money (both of which are in very short supply).
The parody was a Noel Coward one - 'Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Muslims', and led to another parody to the same song 'Don't Let's Be Beasts To Warner Chappell'.
I've written to ask at least a dozen copyright owners of songs I want to parody, nearly all of which didn't even bother replying.. so technically my first CD is largely copyright infringements. So I haven't sold many (sigh).
I've also had many a parody submission turned down by shows such as Bremner, Bird and Fortune for permission reasons rather than quality ones - Disney, for example, as a copyright holder never seem to give permission for their songs to be parodied (which is a shame, because they're such great parody material).
(,
Mon 6 Feb 2012, 21:42,
archived)
We caved to the pressure because even though there was not a hope in hell of WC (now there's an appropriate pair of initials if ever there was one) winning, it would have cost both me and the chap who runs amiright time and money (both of which are in very short supply).
The parody was a Noel Coward one - 'Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Muslims', and led to another parody to the same song 'Don't Let's Be Beasts To Warner Chappell'.
I've written to ask at least a dozen copyright owners of songs I want to parody, nearly all of which didn't even bother replying.. so technically my first CD is largely copyright infringements. So I haven't sold many (sigh).
I've also had many a parody submission turned down by shows such as Bremner, Bird and Fortune for permission reasons rather than quality ones - Disney, for example, as a copyright holder never seem to give permission for their songs to be parodied (which is a shame, because they're such great parody material).