Negativland's OUR FAVORITE THINGS DVD -- copyright infringement is still your best entertainment value

Negativland's new DVD, Our Favorite Things, goes a long way to proving the band's maxim, "Copyright infringement is your best entertainment value." There's hours and and hours of mind-meltingly weird, funny and entirely illegal art here, video renditions of Disney's Little Mermaid spouting obscenities recorded from a phone conversation with an abusive entertainment exec, a blasphemous remix of The Passion of the Christ (The Mashin' of the Christ) and plenty of fun bonus material documenting the band's long history of media pranks and hoaxes. It's strong stuff -- I couldn't watch it all in one sitting -- and there's plenty of noise (visual and auditory) mixed in with the signal, but this is an altogether brilliant bit of plastic for your living room or laptop. Link

• [Ian70]

  Ok, this is parody, but they still have to give out slices of money to the originators of the stuff they’ve sampled from, right?

  How about if you use your camera-phone to record 20 seconds of the Transformers movie so that you can use that clip later in an art project. What part was illegal, the capturing of the sample or the use of it afterwards?

• [Wes Kim]

  If I can toot my own horn, about five years ago, I made a trailer for an anti-consumerism film series at Northwest Film Forum in Seattle. For the images in the trailer, I repurposed signage in a grocery store. Mark Hosler of Negativland was one of the guests, so his name got the altered signage treatment, courtesy of a bulk candy display. The best part was that right next to the altered sign with Hosler’s name, there was an existing sign that read “Please…NO SAMPLING!” I heard later that he appreciated the unintentional joke when he saw it.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4aFo9P3P3E (occurs 40 seconds in)

• [univac]

  It’s also available via Netflix…
  And, yeah, what a strange world we live in when this is available on Amazon!

• [japonaliya]

  About legality/copyright infringement:

  Parody IS protected by the constitution, however, it doesn’t mean that you can use ACTUAL logos, art-work, video, audio clips. You MAY re-draw, film, re-record such media, even if it closely resembles the orignial IF it falls under the free-speech protections i.e. parody. BUT…if you use the actual material, you MAY have to pay license or “use” fees to the copyright owner.

  There IS a provision in the copyright laws about limited use or “sampling” that MAY not need a use fee if it falls under certain “limited use” criteria, which usually has to do with time, and or other specific use.
  For example, if a film shows a scene that has a coke machine in the background, the producers does not have to get permission from Coca Cola, but if the coke bottle is the subject or predominately displayed, they might have to.
  I have not seen this dvd yet, but if the film-makers did not use actual orginal material then they have violated no laws….l.furthermore, did anyone think that the film makers DID get permission to spoof the material??

• [PopeRatzo]

  I love Negativeland, but..

  I’ll wait until it shows up on The Pirate Bay.

  How’s that for “Maverick Spirit”?

• [simplehuman]

  Do one better, most of that stuff is on youtube.

• [Anonymous]

  How is this DVD illegal? It’s clearly parody, which is still protected speech.

• [Cpt. Tim]

  is it on bitorrent?

• [Shawn Struck]

  Is it “My Favorite Things” or our favorite things?

• [SpocksBrain]

  How is this legally for sale on Amazon?