ACT LIKE YOU KNOW

December 08, 2008 @ 7:41 PM - Brian

This morning, I received the following e-mail four separate times. Here’s the full e-mail:

Yo, In the newest issue of Dig(67) there is an article titled Act Like You Know for the Two by Four road trip. The tag that was taken for the article was from the school in Ohio called Central Hower. I myself, did that tag. It was for my own bmx video called Act Like You Know that should be out around Dec 15. For promotion around the city I threw up a bunch of tags with a krink mop instead of making stickers. So what im trying to say is I’m sure keith terra( who im assuming took the photo) or Two by Four didn’t know it was a bmx video coming out from Akron. Even though the trailer is on the Dig Bmx site and other bmx sites as well. But if you could please send me the photo and  possibly the files of the manipulation to the tag/photo. We were going to make that into t-shirts, but now it recently got buffed. If you can’t do that, send me some free stuff. I’m not super pissed about it, but a couple other guys in the crew are. Streets what it is though, things happen right? Here is the link to trailers for proof. http://www.vimeo.com/1165186     http://www.vimeo.com/336315  Thanks for your time have a good day.-Brandon Galosi

Basically, it amounts to fair use of artwork in the public domain. Will does the layouts in the UK, far away from Akron, Ohio, and when he noticed a tag on the school in one of the photos that said, “Act Like You Know,” he thought it would make for a good title for the story. But because a simple phrase, which has been in the vernacular for as long as anyone can remember, was already intended for another BMX video from the Akron, Ohio scene, we’re expected to cough up free stuff to calm down the guys in the crew that are pissed? Umm, okay, let’s think about this for a second. Act Like You Know was also a song by MC Lyte, a book by Crispin Sartwell, two more songs by Will Smith and Fat Larry’s Band and another song by Pete Rock and CL Smooth. So does that mean that the guys making the video should maybe send some free stuff to all those parties too? By their logic, yes. And what if we called the story “Say no to drugs” because Will noticed that sign in the background of one of the photos? Should we assume that McGruff the Crime Dog is gonna want a kickback too? The fact that I’m even discussing the word “kickback” in relation to a BMX magazine story seems a little far fetched to begin with. I guess what I’m getting at is that the phrase wasn’t really owned by anyone pertaining to BMX to begin with. That, and the fact that appeasement through free stuff never seems like it solves anything. I mean, it’s one thing if I’m bunnyhopping over your mother at a demo and land on her. Then of course, we’d give her a free t-shirt. But to claim ownership over a long used phrase in the English language and to then expect compensation for it when it’s used in the same context, that bugs me. At least he was nice about it, thanked us for our time and wished us a nice day…