First, read this (and watch the videos), then come back. I’ll wait.

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Everybody back? OK.

This is the key paragraph:

[Marclay] says he looked into legal action but was assured by his lawyer “there’s nothing I can do about it. They have the right to get inspired.” Of course, in other cases, such obvious “inspiration” might be called copyright infringement. In this instance, however, Marclay’s rights may be limited as his own film consisted of copyrighted works by other artists.

I like Apple. I like Marclay. What Apple did was sleazy. But does it strike anyone else as a tad hypocritical that Marclay’s complaining about Apple ‘stealing’ his video when his video is made from ‘stealing’ other people’s copyrighted work? I don’t know how the hell he thinks he can sue. The idea of stringing a bunch of telephone ‘hellos’ together isn’t copyrightable and shouldn’t be.

tipped off via Kottke… permanent link to this post