"Don't Download This Song" is the first single from "Weird Al" Yankovic's 12th studio album Straight Outta Lynwood, which was released on September 26, 2006. Its name is a parody of MC Lars' Download This Song, but it is a style parody of "We Are the World" and other similar charity songs. The song "describes the perils of online music file-sharing" in a tongue-in-cheek manner.^[1] The song is currently available for streaming and download (legally) in "DRM-free" MPEG fileformat at Weird Al's MySpace page (96 kbit/s, 22050 Hz), at dontdownloadthissong.com (160 kbit/s, 44100 Hz), and for download at Cnet.com's music downloads section (link below). Image File history File links Weirdaldontdownload. ... A collection of various CD singles In music, a single is a short recording of one or more separate tracks. ... This article is about the musician himself. ... Singles from Straight Outta Lynwood Released: August 21, 2006 Released: September 12, 2006 Released: September 26, 2006 Released: March 19, 2007 Straight Outta Lynwood is the twelfth album by Weird Al Yankovic. ... is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays full 2006 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... // A digital download (also known as a digital single or a paid digital download) is an official and legal music single available for purchase through an online store. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Volcano Records is a subsidiary of Sony BMG Music Entertainments Zomba Music Group, and controls the Scotti Bros. ... A songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics to songs, the musical composition or melody to songs, or both. ... In the music industry, a record producer (or music producer) has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes. ... This article is about the musician himself. ... Couch Potato is a song by Weird Al Yankovic. ... White & Nerdy is the second single from Weird Al Yankovics album Straight Outta Lynwood, which was released on September 26, 2006. ... This article is about the musician himself. ... Singles from Straight Outta Lynwood Released: August 21, 2006 Released: September 12, 2006 Released: September 26, 2006 Released: March 19, 2007 Straight Outta Lynwood is the twelfth album by Weird Al Yankovic. ... Andrew Robert Nielsen (born October 6, 1982) is an American rapper, known by his stage name MC Lars. ... Download This Song is the second single from MC Lars fifth studio album, The Graduate, and features Jaret Reddick of Bowling for Soup. ... We Are the World is a 1985 song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced and conducted by Quincy Jones and recorded by a supergroup of popular musicians billed as USA for Africa. ... Sarcasm is the making of remarks intended to mock the person referred to (who is normally the person addressed), a situation or thing. ... Streaming media is multimedia that is continuously received by, and normally displayed to, the end-user while it is being delivered by the provider. ... Digital rights management (DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and other copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. ... MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ...

"Don't Download This Song" references several court cases related to the RIAA and music piracy. Among these are lawsuits against "a grandma" (presumably Gertrude Walton, who was sued for piracy six months after passing away) and a "7-year-old girl" (presumably a reference to 12-year-old Brianna LaHara, who received a lawsuit from the RIAA for copyright violation), as well as Lars Ulrich's strong stance against the music pirating industry in the days of Napster. Mention is also made of Tommy Chong's time spent in prison.^[2][3] The song is one of Weird Al's few outright political songs. The RIAA Logo. ... Brianna LaHara was a 12-year old girl (now 14) from New York who was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on September 8, 2003 for allegedly distributing [uploading] music to the Internet which led to massive public outcry against the RIAAs heavy-handed tactics. ... Lars Ulrich (born December 26, 1963) is the drummer and co-founder of Metallica. ... Second version (revised 2001) of Napster logo: Cat wearing headphones. ... Thomas Tommy B. Kin Chong (born May 24, 1938) is a Canadian-born actor and musician who is well-known for his stereotypical portrayals of hippie-era stoners. ...

Track Listing

The following track is on the downloadable single

1. Don't Download This Song – 3:54

Video

The death scene from the music video.

The music video, animated by Bill Plympton, premiered August 22, 2006 on Yahoo! Music. It depicts the vision of the capture, trial, imprisonment, attempted execution, escape, and burning of a young boy who burns a CD on his computer.^[4] The boy's death, where he stands on top of a tower just before it explodes, parodies the film White Heat, where Cody Jarrett, played by James Cagney, dies in a similar fashion. But at the end, it turns out the boy is just imagining what would happen if he downloaded the song, and goes back to playing his guitar. It is worth noting that as he continues his arrest, the video quality decreases from color to grayscale to dark grayscale to yellowed. The style of drawing is similar to that of Schoolhouse Rock videos. Image File history File links DontDownloadThisSongVideo. ... Image File history File links DontDownloadThisSongVideo. ... A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. ... Bill Plympton Bill Plympton (born April 30, 1946) is an American animator best known for his 1987 Academy Award-nominated animated short Your Face. ... LAUNCHcast is an online radio station that plays music based on user ratings. ... White Heat is a 1949 crime film starring James Cagney, Edmond OBrien and Virginia Mayo. ... James Francis Cagney, Jr. ... Schoolhouse Rock! is a series of 46 educational shorts featuring rock songs about schoolroom topics, including grammar, science, economics and American history and politics. ...

Notes

• The first verse of the song mentions the file sharing applications (incorrectly referred to as "sites" or web-sites) Morpheus, Grokster, Limewire, and KaZaA. On Music Choice OnDemand, these applications are censored from the music video.
• Yankovic credits the proliferation of music over the internet and sites such as MySpace and YouTube with helping to popularize his album Straight Outta Lynwood onto the Top 10 Charts.^[5]
• Yankovic has previously stated that "his real beef with P2P sites" has more to do with misattribution than with money.
• This is one of the few Yankovic songs to contain any profanity. As the song is fading out, one of the lines spoken is "You cheap bastard!". Other Yankovic songs with any profanity include, but are not limited to, "Young, Dumb, and Ugly" ("Raising hell, bending the rules just a little"), "Gump" ("His girlfriend Jenny was kind of a slut"), and "Jerry Springer" (Five days since we had the show with the hermaphrodite, the slut, and the crack whore").

File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Morpheus is the name of a file sharing peer to peer client for Microsoft Windows, operated by the company StreamCast, that originally used the OpenNAP and P2P platform. ... Grokster Ltd. ... LimeWire is a peer-to-peer file sharing client for the Java Platform, which uses the Gnutella network to locate and transfer files. ... Kazaa Media Desktop (once capitalized as KaZaA, but now usually left as Kazaa) is a peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack protocol. ... For Music Choice in United Kingdom, see Music Choice Extra Music Choice is a name used by two different companies, one in the US and one in Europe. ... MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ... YouTube is a popular video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. ... Singles from Straight Outta Lynwood Released: August 21, 2006 Released: September 12, 2006 Released: September 26, 2006 Released: March 19, 2007 Straight Outta Lynwood is the twelfth album by Weird Al Yankovic. ... The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. ... This article is about the musician himself. ... Gump is a song by Weird Al Yankovic. ... Jerry Springer is a 1998 song written by Weird Al Yankovic. ...

See also

• List of singles by "Weird Al" Yankovic
• List of songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic

Weird Al Yankovic (born October 23, 1959) is an American musician best known for his parodies of contemporary radio hits. ... Weird Al Yankovic Weird Al Yankovic is a multi-Grammy award winning American musician, satirist, parodist, accordionist, and television producer. ...

External links

• Listen to The Song and Send E-Cards
• Music Video on YouTube

References