Improv Everywhere got into a beef with R.E.M. this week after the band posted a video that looked a lot like one of the improv group's flash-mob-style events.
The video, for the song "The Big Still," takes its inspiration from Improv Everywhere's mass public freeze at Grand Central Station. After the squabble bubbled up in the blogosphere, R.E.M.'s marketers took down the promo clip and promised to give Improv Everywhere credit for the idea.
Listening Post weighed in on the brouhaha, instigating some invigorated exchanges and e-mails, including more than a few from Improv Everywhere's Charlie Todd (pictured, right, with Ben Folds after pranking the latter's audience in 2006).
Todd's a good sport, so we gave him a chance to state his case. Which he did, offering insights into the differences between rip-offs and take-offs, performance artists and cavemen, and freezing in public for money versus freezing in public for art.
(No comment yet from R.E.M.)
Wired: What's your beef with R.E.M.?
Charlie Todd: We thought it was lame that R.E.M.'s publicityteam at Warner Bros. co-opted the international "freeze" trend forfor their own marketing purposes. We were further irked that they didso without giving a nod to the massive worldwide trend or to our FrozenGrand Central video which started the trend.
Wired: Is it squashed?
Todd: R.E.M.'s marketing person responsible for the video apologized to us personally via YouTube message stating, "Indeed. In the hubbub of R.E.M. release day we forgot to put credit to you all in the description. I have since rectified that. Sincere apologies and do note us on team R.E.M. love the stuff you guys do." He then edited the video description to cite us as the inspiration. He then decided totake things a step further and removed the video in order to edit in a credit to us in the video itself. He left a comment on my site, "Sorry for the lack of attribution. I’ll kyron the video in the AM with proper credit and put it back up. It was an honest mistake. And FTR – when I taught art up at UC Santa Barbara IE was a huge part of my curriculum in my performance art class."
So, the REM publicity guy went to great lengths to immediately rectify the situation. He was super nice about it. I was completely satisfied and impressed with how he handled it.
Wired: Was Improv Everywhere's freeze inspired by anyone or anything in particular? And have you provided attribution or credit accordingly?
Todd: Improv Everywhere had 225 people freeze in place for exactly five minutes at a Manhattan Home Depot store in 2006. It worked really well, but was less effective due to everyone being separated by the aisles. In 2007 we decided to stage the event in Grand Central as it was a more open area and we would be able to capture the entire crowd at once. (The video did not get edited and posted to YouTube until January 2008.) Our initial idea was developed by us independently and was not inspired by anyone or anything else.
We do not claim to be the inventors of "freezing in place." I'm sure a caveman froze in place and everyone thought it was hilarious. That said, we were not aware of any prior work that involved getting hundreds of people to freeze in place together in a public space. To my knowledge, no such prior work exists. Yes, there have been smaller-scale examples of freezing in place for comedy and/or art, including the Just for Laughs television show which had a handful of people freeze in place in a grocery store, but I have seen nothing on the scale of what we did.
Wired: Why does R.E.M. have to credit Improv Everywhere for the band's video, which was designed to promote Tuesday's release of Accelerate?
Todd: R.E.M. doesn't have to do anything. I know you can't copyright ideas. I never claimed to have any sort of copyright or legal ownership. I just said that I thought it was lame that they blatantly co-opted our idea and did not mention us as the inspiration.
Wired: How would you characterize your exchange with R.E.M.'s crew? Do you think they got nervous about copyfight litigation after your blog post?
Todd: Our exchange has been friendly and the publicity guy promptly responded to our concern. I'm a fan of R.E.M. and he's a fan of Improv Everywhere. We're cool. I don't think he was ever nervous of litigation, no. I never said anything that indicated any legal ownership. I just said it was "lame." I don't think that's a threatening term.
Wired: So, is R.E.M.'s promo video a rip-off or a take-off? Or something else?
Todd: One major problem I have with your post is you didn't do the research to understand that this is not just about my Grand Central video, but about the worldwide movement it sparked. Since our video debuted at the end of January, there have been 59 freeze events in 29 countries. It is an international phenomenon. People from China, to Mexico, to Latvia, to Paris have all replicated our freeze mission, coming together in huge numbers to freeze in place for five minutes in a public space. I even set up a website to help people organize themselves.
Wired: Would you have been as concerned about the lack of credit if this was perpetrated by someone no one has ever heard of before?
Todd: In the seven years we have been around, I have always been strongly in favor of sharing our ideas. I encourage others to go out and replicate our ideas if they want to. I've encouraged people to start their own local groups. I have been completely in support of spreading the fun. So no, to answer your question, I was not concerned at all when our freeze mission was perpetrated by thousands of people in 59 cities. (Some cities had over a thousand people in a single event.) You can see all of the events listed here.
Some of these groups made it clear in their video description that they were inspired by us. Some didn't include a credit. No big deal. These events are organized by regular people and for the sole purpose of doing something fun and independent. The reason I thought the R.E.M. event was lame was because it was marketing. They had R.E.M.-branded umbrellas and T-shirts in the video. The event was to promote a product. People were hired and paid to make the video. The PR guy gets a salary to come up with PR ideas. Money is involved. So for a lame event like that to come along and be the 60th freeze video but insinuate that the idea comes from the name of the R.E.M. album did not sit right with me. It was produced and shot in the exact same way as my video. It was clearly inspired by ours. In fact, I noticed that the R.E.M. YouTube account listed our video in its favorites.
Wired: What's next for Improv Everywhere?
Todd: Improv Everywhere has several events in the development stage for the spring and summer here in New York. Nothing is set in stone yet, and we try to keep our events secret until we stage them. Wired blog readers can see all of our 70-plus missions over the past seven years on our missions page.
Photo: Charlie Todd
See also:
