It may not be quite as funny as Sony BMG being raided and sued for software piracy early this year, but it sure is a good one all on its own. According to a report on FoeBuD (Google Translated), which is a member of EDRI, Johannes Kreidler, a German artist composed a 33 second song which quotes 70,200 musical works protected by copyright.

While it is a legal gray zone in some countries, apparently you are legally obliged to send GEMA a form for every copyrighted work you quoted from in your musical works. Many Germans have said that a better solution in this day and age is to simply set up a cultural “flat rate” instead. So to protest the only way you can legally quote copyrighted works is to fill out these forms. Kreidler composed the 33 second song with 70,200 quotations – and filled out every single individual form required in the process.

After what would no doubt cramp your hand for filling out so many forms, the composer rented a truck complete with protest stickers and delivered every single form to GEMA. One can only imagine what was going through the office workers minds at such a sight.

The report quotes the press release with the following (Google translated from German to English)

“Today’s technologies allow cultural goods in huge dimensions and creatively distribute further process [...] Unfortunately, the legal side to the outdated copyright law in the way.” The copying technology as a culture have through the digital media arts and general means of communication. With a view to its absurd protection of intellectual property would this progress, however, countered almost prohibitive. It was in the digital world but no longer clearly defined what that own and what the stranger in a creative performance. “Every artist is a collecting society!”

Certainly in todays remix culture, it would be difficult to impossible to track every single derivative use of copyrighted works – especially since the growth of YouTube where video is now in question as well. There’s plenty of examples in AMV’s (Anime Music Videos) and parody, not to mention commentary and criticism.

P2P-blog commented on the story, saying that the protest was meant to not only question this legal obligation, but also question the validity of copyright laws in a digital age.

A couple months ago, Germans also protested data retention laws. One can hope that these movements can bring forth something positive in all of this.