Gimme Gimme Gimme....a Subscriber!

[Nightengale]

Hi Warriors,

I've been up all night wasting time on YouTube, mostly watching/listening to ABBA songs/clips. (Love their music, BTW! Well, much of it anyway.)

Anyway, I found someone who had posted the lyrics to the soundtrack of ABBA's hit song "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)" but in the info box, they had written "Gimme Gimme Gimme A Subscriber!" They also added the changed lyrics to the end of the song in the video to "Gimme Gimme Gimme A Subscriber!"

As someone who's always thinking about IM and building my list, I found this just hilarious! When I'm watching/listening to ABBA, (or anything else on YouTube for that matter -- unless it's specifically related to marketing) I'm certainly not thinking of IM and I never would have made THAT connection!

It made me wonder... Could you make a connection between a pop culture song and your IM business, find a video for it on YouTube and use it in your marketing campaign? Has anyone here done it successfully? I know it would have to be a natural connection, not forced. And your intended audience would have to identify with the song and artist.

Just curious.

Here's a video of their live performance of "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)." Some other videos of this song have better sound quality, but Agnetha's performance here is simply outstanding.

YouTube - ABBA - Gimme Gimme Gimme(live in...

Michelle

[commerce cat]

That's pretty funny!

But coming from a copyright law background, be very very careful. If you copy any original works for a commercial purpose without authorisation (ie paying huge licensing fees) then that could well be seen as criminal copyright infringement. There are also trademark issues that could arise too. Sorry to be a downer but just don't want any one getting in trouble.

However, a popular song title could be tweeked for use in marketing as the title itself has no copyright.

[Loren Woirhaye]

As far as I know YouTube cracks down on videos with
copyrighted recordings. If you were to create your own
parody of the song or original recording you might still
subject to publishing laws; but realistically your video
and recording would probably be permitted to remain.

I don't know what the laws about parody are - they
are pretty lenient however. If you are not selling your
song to make money you can argue that it's just free
speech.

[Nightengale]

Good point. Trademark and copyright are certainly issues.

I wasn't thinking of parodies at all -- more along the lines of tying a marketing theme into an existing pop culture song and using the video AS IS. No changes required.

As for YouTube cracking down on unauthorized videos....

1. There are clips of songs and artists all over YouTube and I know that the majority of them (if not all of them) aren't officially sanctioned. So I'm not terribly concerned about getting clearance from YouTube.

2. More to the point though, getting clearance from the artists/record labels WOULD be a concern. I certainly wouldn't want to do anything illegal.

The "Gimme Gimme Gimme A Subscriber!" line though really caught my attention and started the creativity wheels turning. "Surely this idea could be used in some way!"

Just a thought.

Michelle

[Loren Woirhaye]

MySpace has super-aggressive filters which will immediately
remove a video with copywrited music on it. YouTube does
not have such automated filters in place; they'll just ban
your video after it gets discovered and if you do it too much
they'll ban your account.

[MarkWrites]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

It made me wonder... Could you make a connection between a pop culture song and your IM business, find a video for it on YouTube and use it in your marketing campaign?

Oh, Mamma Mia, you could!

In fact... do you know how much Money, Money, Money a promotion like that could bring in? If not... then I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do! And in Internet Marketing, making money is The Name Of The Game.

Though your initial success could make you jump up and literally become the Dancing Queen, you do have to look into copyright issues as they could be your Waterloo.

And you still would want to find a way to connect with the audience on a personal level, because in IM without our customers Knowing Me, Knowing You... they may not trust us enough to buy.

Well, hang in there like a Super Trouper and Thank You For The Music!

Sincerely,
Fernando

[commerce cat]

For the most part, all the copyrighted material that has been uploaded on YouTube without authorisation is done not for profit and the US's fair use laws are a bit grey where people are doing things not for profit - also the posters are hard to identify in real life and there are so many of them so it's not worth chasing (instead they sue YouTube). There's definitely much greater leeway for parody and satire but an ad wouldn't be that. Thing is copyright lawyers are mean and they do search through sites - if you have your business name identified with an ad using copyrighted music and they find it, they will not be nice at all. They like finding people to make examples of.

I have noticed a few big IMers using copyrighted material in the background or even prominently in their promo material with no indication that they've got clearance and I do wonder if they realise how much of a serious infringement (and probably crime) that actually is.