Copyright Questions by the Truck Load

Janko Roettgers blogged about this German gem on p2p-blog.com:

German avant-garde musician Johannes Kreidler has composed a song that quotes from 70,200 other musical works in merely 33 seconds. Did I mention he’s an avant-garde musician? In any case, he’s trying to be a good citizen and properly report all of the songs he used to the German music rights organization GEMA. The only problem: Each and every song quoted has to be reported by filling out a separate form.

His full post is here.

All 70,200 forms are being delivered via a truck on September 12 apparently.  This was done explicitly to expose the absudity of the situation and manages to be both hilarious and insightful.

GEMA and their counterparts in other countries have to find a way to work within the new paradigm of content reuse or risk being left behind.  Check out this video from the original article.  You don’t need to understand German to laugh your ass off.