Parodies Buy The Dashboard Lights: A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me buy.

Back in the day, companies would pay big bucks for the use of much-loved songs to promote products. It was an advertising expense. Microsoft reportedly paid the Rolling Stones $10 Million for the use of "Start Me Up" to launch Windows™, and the same song was later used by Ford Motor Company.

Forget the dollars lost from consumers who freely share music files over the Internet. The latest ripoff that's burning music publishers is the so-called "fair use" of music and lyrics for commercial purposes, under the guise of parody.

Just this week, the creative animators at JibJab came under fire for using Woody Guthrie's song "This Land is Your Land" in a political parody of President George W. Bush and presidential hopeful John Kerry. It's funny, but the music publishers aren't laughing.

"This puts a completely different spin on the song," said Kathryn Ostien, director of copyright licensing for the publisher. "The damage to the song is huge."

Is this political parody, a self-promotional advertisement, really a parody of the song, as claimed by JibJab in defense of the ensuing copyright infringement lawsuit? I think not.

And now, the inspired folks at Linspire have put together a very flashy advertisement called Run Linspire. Will the publishers of The Doors' "Light My Fire" agree that this is a "parody" of "Light My Fire" by Jim Morrison, as stated in the "credits" at the end of this advertisement? I really don't think so!

UPDATE: Within a few hours of this post, it appears that the Run Linspire animation was taken down from the Linspire website link above. I don't suppose that Michael Robertson, the CEO of Linspire, reads Wordlab regularly (even after he was called the Master of his Domain in a post here last Tuesday). Maybe not everyone thought "Come on baby, run Linspire..." was very funny. "It's a bit corny," Robertson wrote, "but this parody will likely make you smile and remember our new name." Maybe Linspire got a cease and desist letter from the music publisher. Or, perhaps their new friends at Microsoft, who are cutting Linspire a check for $20 Million, were not amused. There's another copy of the animation here if you missed it. Look quick; it might not be up very long.

UPDATE 7/31: Abnu is a Guest Blogger at Legal Underground, which hosts an expanded version of this post that gets deeper into this copyfight discussion with lawyers who blawg.