Jonathan Coulton, the artist whose original arrangement of “Baby Got Back” was aired on Glee this week, has updated fans that the executives at Glee and Fox have contacted him regarding their use of the song.
To fill you in, we reported last week that Jonathan Coulton’s version of “Baby Got Back” was used on this week’s “Sadie Hawkins” episode of Glee. Coulton claims he had no idea that the song was going to be used and that he was going to have his lawyers research the copyright law regarding its use.
Over the last week, Coulton has been updating his fans on his website about the investigation.
Today, Coulton once again updated fans after the “Sadie Hawkins” episode aired last night on Fox saying that executives at Glee has “got in touch with [his] peeps” and asserted that they were within their legal rights to use the song. Here’s Coulton’s full update from today:
Well, they aired it, seemingly unchanged. And it’s now for sale in the US iTunes store. They also got in touch with my peeps to basically say that they’re within their legal rights to do this, and that I should be happy for the exposure (even though they do not credit me, and have not even publicly acknowledged that it’s my version – so you know, it’s kind of SECRET exposure). While they appear not to be legally obligated to do any of these things, they did not apologize, offer to credit me, or offer to pay me, and indicated that this was their general policy in regards to covers of covers. It does not appear that I have a copyright claim, but I’m still investigating the possibility (which I consider likely) that they used some or all of my audio. I’ll write something longer and more detailed about this when I can get my head together about it probably in a couple of days. Thanks for your support, but please continue not to burn anything down.
No official word about the usage of the arrangement has been made to the public by Glee or Fox.
Though we understand Coulton’s interest in being credited, Glee has never made a public announcement thanking any of the original artists (whether they’re Jonathan Coulton or Madonna) for the use of their music on the show.
Do you think Glee should include a shout out to the artist either in the script of the show or in the credits from here on out? Leave your thoughts about the JoCo situation below!
