1: YouTube Confirms “Rickroll” Removal Was a Mistake, Brings Back Video

First off today, the Internet was shaken to its very meme core yesterday when the original Rickroll video was removed from YouTube for a terms of use violation. The video, which is really a copy of Rick Astley’s 1987 music video “Never Gonna Give You Up”, which people are tricked into seeing as a joke, was removed by accident by YouTube after it received several spam complaints, likely from those who fell for the prank. YouTube has now restored the video and Rick Astley, who is on vacation, has not commented on the temporary removal though his manager said he was “disappointed” in the removal.

2: EMI Appeals Against Down Under Ruling

Next up, EMI, the record label behind the Australian band “Men at Work” is appealing a recent court decision that found the band had infringed the rights of the song “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” for using two bars from the song in their 80s hit “Down Under”. According to EMI, the lower court placed too little weight on the amount of time that had passed before the similarities had been noticed and that the copyright was not correctly transferred to the plaintiffs.

3: Microsoft Kills Watchdog Website Due to Leaked Documents

Finally today, Microsoft sent a DMCA takedown notice to the host of leak site Cryptome claiming that their posting of a “Spy Guide” written by the company and leaked to the site was a violation of their copyright. The host, Network Solutions, told the site to remove the content by Thursday or face closure but the owner did not budge, causing the site to be shuttered on Wednesday evening. Microsoft has not commented on this story.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

People who know me know that I love April Fool’s day. However, it has always come with a conflict of interest for me on this site. Though every year I think of April Fool’s Day gags for PT, I also think of reasons not to go for it.

To date, no articles or information on the site has been knowingly and intentionally wrong. Any and all mistakes were exactly that, mistakes.

Still, PT does bring out the creativity in me. So rather than actually play any of the jokes, I’m going to list some of the stronger ideas I’ve had and why I haven’t done them.

Like all ideas, consider these non-copyrighted, feel free to steal them for next year.

The Rickroll

The Gag: Simple enough, write an article about Rick Astley and/or his record label demanding removal of the famous video (Yes, that link is a Rickroll, you have been warned) from YouTube. Then link to it repeatedly in the article and then post a notice at the end of the day that the story was a joke.

Where it Came From: Rickrolling has hit the copyright world hard. It was time to get some people back.

Why I Didn’t Do It: Fear for my life was the main reason. However, equally importantly, Reddit beat me to it earlier this year.

The RIAA Shill

The Gag: Announce that the site was sponsored by the RIAA and proceed to spend the day writing very pro-RIAA articles. Change theme to include several RIAA ads and slather the site with their logo and information.

Where it Came From: I had come up with a similar joke years ago where my then-literature site would be sponsored by Hot Topic or some other clothing store.

Why I Didn’t Do It: First, I didn’t think it was believable enough. On the other hand, the RIAA might not see the humor and come after me for trademark infringement. It’s all fun and games until someone gets a cease and desist.

The Takedown

The Gag: Replace the home page of Plagiarism Today with a notice that the site had been shut down following a DMCA notice. Then have hidden link to enter regular site.

Where it Came From: My interactions with other hosts and how they often handle copyright issues.

Why I DIdn’t Do It: I didn’t want Media Temple to get bombarded with hate mail over the issue since I’ve openly talked about where I am hosted. Also didn’t want to hurt my search engine ranking.

The Trademark Dispute

The Gag: Claim that PlagiarismToday is being forced to drop the “PT” logo due to a conflict with the PT Cruiser brand. Draft phony legal-like letters and change the logo for a day.

Where it Came From: My wife loves PT Cruisers so it seemed like a natural joke given the confusion in the house.

Why I Didn’t Do It: Besides the potential legal issues, as I just said, my wife loves PT Cruisers. I can not promise where I’d sleep if I had done it.

The Lawsuit

The Gag: Draft a phony lawsuit from a fake person and “sue” myself by posting it on the site. Link to the other person’s blog, which I would have created, and pretend that there is an ongoing dispute.

Where it Came From: This one was initially proposed by one of my many lawyer friends who was going to help me draft the fake lawsuit.

Why I Didn’t Do It: Too believable, at least to people who do not know me. Also, it would have been a lot of work, setting up and writing for a second blog just for a one-day joke.

Conclusions

Every year on this day I have a lot of fun watching the different jokes that are played and even being caught by a few of them. It’s a fun day filled with a lot of laughs.

Maybe some day I’ll think of a joke that is right for this site but, in the meantime, I more than enjoy partaking from the sidelines.

So, thank you very much for bearing with me as I take a day to recover, get caught up and answer all of my email.

I hope you found this list at least somewhat amusing and I’d love to hear your ideas for jokes too. Perhaps you can think of something I can use next year…

A Quick Word About WordCamp

I had a great time at WordCamp Dallas. You can already find photos of me and my talk as well as a video of my talk that was recorded live.

However, the live video had some audio troubles and I’m not going to post it here. Instead, I’m going to wait for the professional version that was recorded by John P and post it later this week.

Still, I do want to thank my old friends including Charles Stricklin, Lorelle VanFossen and Liz Strauss for making the event so much fun.

Also, thanks to my new friends and people I met including Spamboy, DB, and Chris Jean among many, many others.

It was a great time all around and I’m looking forward to next year!

More to come.