I was a musician and songwriter for a number of years, so I know quite a bit about the process for publishing songs and registering songs for copyright. I’ve even had some odd experiences with having material pilfered, a song licensed, etc., so I learned some real world lessons as well. And so when I see “Elmo’s Song”, this makes me think of all of this morass of copyright and attribution stuff, and then it starts to look like entrapment to me!
When you write a song, you register it with a publisher, and then you register it with the US Copyright Office. (If you don’t, you’ll be sorry…!) And so then, when someone else rips it off, you can show that it’s yours. And here’s where things get fun: if you can trick someone into claiming to have written your song, you can sue them for copyright infringement! And this is exactly what Elmo does to his “friends” on Sesame Street with “Elmo’s Song”! (Except he’s probably waiting to sue them later, when he’s down & out!) Don’t believe me? Check it out:
Okay, look, here are the lyrics to “Elmo’s Song” (reprinted under the “fair use” thingy):
This is the song,
La la la la,
Elmo’s song,
La la la la,
La la la la,
Elmo’s song,
(etc.)
He wrote the music,
He wrote the words,
That’s Elmo’s song!
Okay, so he sings this part, and then he peer-pressures other characters on Sesame Street to sing this song, but substituting their names for his, so it looks like they’re claiming to have written it themselves! For example:
This is the song,
La la la la,
Big Bird’s song,
La la la la,
La la la la,
Big Bird’s song,
(etc.)
He wrote the music,
He wrote the words,
That’s Big Bird’s song!
So there he’s got them framed! He’s got them on video and audio actually claiming to have written his song! That’s all he needs to sue them for stealing his work! Then he can extort them for thousands of dollars! And in writing a song like this, and then encouraging others to sing it, with words claiming it’s their song, he is entrapping them for copyright infringement!
Shame on you, Elmo! I thought they were your friends! How could you set them up like this?
Here’s “Elmo’s Song”, so you can all clearly see how dastardly his plot is:
And here is a webpage with the lyrics, including the entrapment part on more than one character:
(This is a joke, but it is a good example of a teachable moment in copyright law! Maybe Sesame Street ought to use this song for such a purpose.)
