"Don't Download This Song" is the first single from

"Weird Al" Yankovic Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic ( ; born October 23, 1959) is an American singer, musician, songwriter, record producer, actor and author. He is best known for creating comedy songs that make light of pop culture and often parody specifi ...

's 12th studio album '' Straight Outta Lynwood''. The song was released exclusively on August 21, 2006 as a digital download. It is a style parody of "

We Are the World "We Are the World" is a charity single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album ''We Are the World''. Wit ...

", " Voices That Care", "

Hands Across America Hands Across America was a public fundraising event on Sunday, May 25, 1986, when 5 to 6.5 million people held hands for 15 minutes in an attempt to form a continuous human chain across the contiguous United States. The attempt to have a co ...

", "

Heal the World "Heal the World" is a song recorded by American recording artist Michael Jackson from his eighth studio album, ''Dangerous'' (1991). It was released on November 23, 1992 as the fifth single from the album. It was written and composed by Jackson, ...

" and other similar charity songs. The song "describes the perils of online music file-sharing" in a

tongue-in-cheek The idiom tongue-in-cheek refers to a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner. History The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walter Scott ...

manner.Bill Plympton Studio
To further the sarcasm, the song was freely available for

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

and to legally download in

DRM DRM may refer to: Government, military and politics * Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd * Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar * Direction du renseignement milita ...

-free MPEG fileformat at Weird Al's Myspace page, a standalone website, as well as his

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel.

Background

"Don't Download This Song" references several court cases related to the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

and copyright infringement of music. Among these are lawsuits against "a grandma" (presumably Gertrude Walton, who was sued for copyright infringement six months after dying) and a "7-year-old girl" (presumably a reference to Tanya Andersen's daughter sued at age 10 for alleged copyright infringements made at the age of 7), as well as

Lars Ulrich Lars Ulrich (; ; born 26 December 1963) is a Danish musician best known as the drummer and co-founder of American heavy metal band Metallica. The son and grandson respectively of tennis players Torben and Einer Ulrich, he played tennis in his ...

's strong stance against copyright infringement of music in the days of

Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...

. The song also challenges the RIAA's claim that file sharing prevents the artists from profiting from their work, as the song argues that they are still very financially successful via their recording contracts: ("Don't take away money from artists just like me/How else can I afford another solid-gold

Humvee The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the ori ...

, Or diamond-studded swimming pool? Those things don't grow on trees"). Mention is also made of

Tommy Chong Thomas B. Kin Chong (born May 24, 1938) is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, musician, activist. He is known for his marijuana-themed Cheech & Chong comedy albums and movies with Cheech Marin, as well as playing the character Leo on Fox's ' ...

's time spent in prison. Yankovic's own views on filesharing are less clear-cut: Yankovic's intention was to leave the listener with no clear understanding of Yankovic's own views on the matter, "all by design".

Music video

The

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

, animated by

Bill Plympton Bill Plympton (born April 30, 1946) is an American animator, graphic designer, cartoonist, and filmmaker best known for his 1987 Academy Awards-nominated animated short '' Your Face'' and his series of shorts featuring a dog character starting ...

, premiered August 22, 2006 on

Yahoo! Music Yahoo! Music was a brand under which Yahoo! provided a variety of music services, including Internet radio, music videos, news, artist information, and original programming. Previously, users with Yahoo! accounts could gain access to hundreds of ...

. It depicts the vision of the capture, trial, imprisonment, attempted

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the State (polity), state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to ...

, escape, and burning of a young boy who burns a CD on his computer.Premieres on Yahoo! Music
The boy's death, where he stands on top of a tower just before it explodes, parodies the film ''

White Heat ''White Heat'' is a 1949 American film noir directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly and Steve Cochran. Written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, ''White Heat'' is based on a story by Vi ...

'', where Cody Jarrett, played by

James Cagney James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor, dancer and film director. On stage and in film, Cagney was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He ...

, dies in a similar fashion. Various people, from policemen to criminals to even sharks and dogs, are then seen celebrating throughout the ending chorus. But at the end, it turns out the boy is just imagining what would happen if he downloaded the song, so he throws away the burned CD and goes back to playing his guitar. Throughout the song, the video coloring gradually changes from color to grayscale to dark grayscale to yellowed. On MTV's MTV Music site where this music video is available, they have censored the names of the file sharing programs in the song, such as

LimeWire LimeWire was a free software, free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Microsoft Windows, Windows, MacOS, Linux and Solaris OS, Solaris. Created by Mark Gorton in 2000, it was most prominently a tool used for the download and distribution of O ...

or KaZaA. Weird Al explained that MTV contacted him and told him they would not air his video if the references to the filesharing programs were not in some way removed, so he "made the creative decision to bleep them out as obnoxiously as possible, so that there would be no mistake I was being censored." The video was praised by the

Annie Award The Annie Awards are accolades which the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood, has presented each year since 1972 to recognize excellence in animation shown in cinema and television. Originally desi ...

s and was subsequently nominated for Best Animated Short Subject for its 34th ceremony, but was beat out by the

Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

featurette, ''

No Time for Nuts ''No Time for Nuts'' is a computer-animated short film from Blue Sky Studios, starring Scrat from ''Ice Age (franchise), Ice Age''. Directed by Chris Renaud (animator), Chris Renaud and Mike Thurmeier, it was released on November 21, 2006, on the D ...

''.

References

External links

alyankovicVEVO"Weird Al Yankovic - Don't Download This Song"
''

'', October 2, 2009. The music video at Yankovic's official YouTube

Vevo Vevo ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized as VEVO until 2013) is an American multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available as an app on selected smart TVs, di ...

website.
PlymptoonsDON'T DOWNLOAD THIS SONG - Weird Al Yankovic & Bill Plympton
''

''. The music video at

's official YouTube website.
Listen to the Song and Send E-Cards
{{DEFAULTSORT:Don't Download This Song 2006 singles Protest songs "Weird Al" Yankovic songs Songs written by "Weird Al" Yankovic Pop ballads Music videos directed by Bill Plympton Mass media about Internet culture 2006 songs 2000s ballads Animated music videos Volcano Entertainment singles

Background

Music video

See also

References

External links