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Really, Glee?

For those of you who haven’t heard, Glee blatantly and without pity ripped off Jonathan Coulton’s hilarious arrangement of “Baby Got Back” this week. Not like “these sound very familiar” kinda ripoffs, but a note-for-note, same banjo track, exact same tempo, also used the phrase “Jonny C’s in trouble” despite the fact that no character in the show is named Jonny C ripoff. Listen to them together on this video if you’re not convinced.

The crazy thing is…oh god, there are like seven crazy things…the MOST CRAZY thing on the list of crazy things is that Coulton’s arrangement is in the creative commons, all Fox would have had to do to make this OK would be to give attribution…they don’t even have to ask…JUST GIVE CREDIT! But apparently that was too much…real classy Fox.

Other crazy things include:

1. How lazy the cover is…clearly recording on top of Coulton’s tracks at the exact same tempo.
2. How any creator could use something so fantastic and hilarious as Coulton’s cover and not feel the need to give attribution EVEN IF IT WAS NOT LEGALLY MANDATED
3. How no one wondered, during recording, what “Johnny C’s in trouble” was referring to, as if they thought JoCo’s version was the original.
4. How no legal action will follow, because Fox is big and has lots of lawyers, and Jonathan Coulton is small and does not
5. How most people who watch Glee will think “LoL, those Glee folks are so clever” and have no idea.
6. How none of that really matters because now we all know how lazy and callous the people who produce that show are and, if we hadn’t stopped watching before, we certainly will now.
7. How they ever ever ever thought they could get away with this without catching the intense wrath of the internet. WRATH PEOPLE WRATH!!