…yes I must be one of a few blogs not to post the original – I love Psy’s Gangam Style though. And some of the parodies and mashups (plenty of really bad ones though). But it’s funnier without the music!
But this isn’t a usual YouTube hit and run post – there’s an interesting side that apparently Psy or his label might have waived or ignored copyright claims on YouTube and other sites and has been rewarded with a massive world-wide success (top 10 in 10 countries, No. 2 in the Billboard charts – for an untranslated K-Pop track that’s unheard of) and a viral hit.
Goes to show you what I and many others have been saying for years, that artists and record labels are shooting themselves in the foot with DMCA and C&Ds and such like. Mashups, fan remixes, flashmobs, recreations, parodies, covers, family videos and even literal misheard videos are all excellent free promotion for a track. And Psy or his label are probably canny enough to know that.
If not it’s an amazingly happy accident – but by not being all litigious about it (eh Rastamouse? No I will never forget that) the Psy phenomenon has gone world wide – aided by a lot of these fan videos. As was Gotye’s massive hit, also as I seem to remember. So it amazes me that still videos get pulled and quite often falsely – and that news that YouTube was finally changing it’s terribly flawed ContentID system to one requiring manual review and appeals seems to be wrong.
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