Into It With Sam Sanders
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Theres a lot packed into that sentence, so lets break it down.
The pooping unicorns also perform this song in an animated commercial.
I love the unicorn-poop song.
I watched it ten times just to prepare for this recording, and I just became infatuated with it.
Its transformative, and I think it is deserving of the legal protection that its makers insist on.
But, you know, I tend to err on the side of free speech.
So it was inevitable that I was going to be on team Poopsie Slime Surprise here.
That is their charm.
For that alone, they should win.I totally agree.
The ingenuity that went into making this doll … what will humans do next?
But anyway, theyve made these dolls.
They want to market them, right?
So they put out a video thats designed to go viral.
The record label that owns the rights to My Humps files a copyright lawsuit.
Which I think is a contestable statement, but well just go with that.
The Black Eyed Peas are offensive to me as a person.
Have you heard these songs?Im just telling you what the lawyers say here.
Im not stepping up for this label.
Are the unicorn folks just saying, Well, actually we didnt make My Humps.
We made My Poops?
Cause they do say, My poop.
My poop, my poop, my poop.They havent mounted a full-on defense here.
But their basic argument is Look, theres copyright, of course.
People get to hold the rights to their intellectual property and their art.
So whos gonna win?This is a really tough case.
The unicorn-doll people are trying to sell a product.
Theyre not making a song that they want to perform for the masses.
Theyre not making a short film that they want to submit to the Oscars.
They just want to get these dolls in the hands of young children.
This leads to a very thorny question.
Because, intuitively, that makes sense to me.
All art is commercial on some level.
Like, you make a parody song youre trying to sell downloads.
You make a parody film youre trying to get people to buy the rights to it.
The Supreme Court is currently deliberating on a case similar to this one.
Theres this photographer named Lynn Goldsmith, who took this iconic photo of Prince.
If you Google Lynn Goldsmith, Prince, youll see the picture.
Its this silk-screen painting of Prince that has a kind of hollowed-out feeling.
His face looks masklike.
It is different from the original picture, but obviously based on it.
SoVanity Fairputs that on its cover.
The only money she ever got was the $400 fromVanity Fairup front.
You owe me money.
The Andy Warhol estate goes, Oh, we have a problem here.Vanity Fairis caught in the middle.
The Andy Warhol estate then goes to court and says, You know what, Lynn Goldsmith?
Were gonna sue you.
You told me before that this was going to be an atomic bomb in the art world.
Why?Both sides have a whole lot to lose in this case.
Start with the photographers.
What was the mood like in the room during oral arguments?
Can you make any predictions about how the justices will rule?The mood was alternately goofy and tense.
A lot of that stuff does play into politics.
This is not so clearly political.
But then you started hearing concerns about technology.
People didnt even have flip phones the last time the Court took up a case like this.
Theres a famous case where there was a parody of the song Pretty Woman, the Roy Orbison song.
This group called 2 Live Crew decided to do their own version.
I was hoping youd get to 2 Live Crew.That goes up to the Supreme Court.
The question is, is that fair use?
And the Court says yes.
That was back in the 90s.
Thomas Jefferson would not have wanted the Black Eyed Peas label to sue Poopsie Slime Surprise.
I promise you that.
You spend it on elections and on politicians.
So what would change for me as a consumer of entertainment based on the Supreme Courts ruling?
And I know thats a big LOL ,because Congress doesnt do anything.
Or is it just a crass copy?
The courts have long said, We dont wanna do that.
We are bad art critics.
We do not have good taste in this stuff.
The fact that we havent gotten a decision yet suggests that the Court is divided.
If it takes this long, it usually means somebodys got the majority, somebodys writing a dissent.
Theres a chance that the Court could divide so badly that they dont end up really solving anything.
(You know, I am homosexual.)
This song sounds a lot like a Paramore song.
And I think that was total b.s.
Olivia Rodrigo was not doing anything different from Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, honestly.
You gotta think of the bigger picture, which is that we live in 2023.
Everything thats been done will be done again.
Everything that can be done has already been done.
Describing Paramore as an ancestor makes me feel very old, but Sam, I think its the truth.
What I hear you saying is Justice for Olivia Rodrigo.
Justice for the My Poops Unicorns.
Let it all be free.I could not agree more.
This interview had been edited and condensed.
