Business Insider: When Nathan Evans, a 26-year-old Scottish postal worker, began uploading videos of himself singing sea shanties to TikTok several months ago, "going viral" may not have been on his mind. But as with all stories of virality, the beginning is less important than what happened next.
2 comments:
I really did not think I would ever write about sea shanties and TikTok, but I love it. One of my favorites that I have seen was Jimmy Fallon’s sea shanty rendition of “Drivers License”, but that was more due to the source material and context rather than the adaptation. I think the pandemic has made many performances difficult. While virtual performance is wonderful, it is difficult to sync up properly. TikTok duets coupled with the easy to follow rhythm of sea shanties are an interesting and effective modality for virtual performance. Creators can harmonize with themselves or contribute to other people’s videos. I had seen the Kermit duet prior to this article. I like how this article and phenomenon stresses the collaborative element of creativity. I was surprised to read about the inner workings of copyright law. I wrongfully assumed that if you change it enough like putting it to the rhythm of a sea shanty, it becomes parody and is not subject to copyright law. I assumed this with “7 Rings” and was impressed by the percentage Ariana Grande ended up paying in royalties. While this article likely won’t change much, I do wonder if new platforms will contribute to change down the line. At the same time, larger record companies and similar organizations likely would work against these changes and have little to no motivation to support them.
-A.B.
This article makes a really strong case for how copyright law is inhibiting creativity. While it focuses mainly on the music industry, I think we really need to look at the movie industry and how companies like Disney are making themselves into monopolies. If we look at Marvel movies, which felt like 50% of all movie releases prior to the pandemic, a lot of the comics that these films are based on came out more than 50 years ago. If these characters entered the public domain, then other studios could also tell interesting stories with these characters, and the onus would be on Disney to tell good stories and make good movies in order to earn our attendance. Copyright law is only helping those with enough money for good copyright lawyers stifle competition. Independent creators often get their content stolen by large artists like Jason Derulo, and they can’t do anything about it.
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