Well now the Chiat kids are saying I stole their copyright material, and went so far as to get YouTube involved. Funny, YouTube's automated this-isn't-your-song system didn't have anything to say about it. Here's the notice I got:

ATTENTION We have received copyright complaint(s) regarding material you posted, as follows:

from Adam Forstadt about VID00017 — FunyonJr
Video ID: cdaUgO0maHQ
Please Note: Accounts determined to be repeat infringers will be terminated. Please delete any videos for which you do not own the necessary rights, and refrain from uploading infringing videos.

If you are unsure what this means, it is very important that you visit our Copyright Tips guide.

If you believe you have the necessary rights or authorization to post this content, you may file a counternotice. There may be severe legal consequences for filing a false or bad-faith notice. Please take the time to review appropriate copyright-related materials before deciding to submit a counternotice. You can find more information in our Help Center.

For your reference, a copy of this message can also be located in your Account Warnings page.

Guys, when will you learn? This is AgencySpy and you just made things worse. Why? Because you can't get over yourselves and start laughing with the rest of us. In the interest of not getting banned from YouTube, I'm tempted to take the video down. But at the end of the day, who the heck cares? Vimeo or someone will surely have me.

I think it's kinda funny that YouTube thinks I care that I might get kicked off. Sure they do a good job of hosting my content. But since I don't really care, the threat hasn't changed my heart rate. However, I'm definitely curious about these guys' insistence that I take the video down. Damage done, right? You put it on the web, thereby opening yourselves up to all the ridicule that follows.

In the first e-mail they sent me via YouTube, they said they were investigating who I was and they knew from the reflection that it was someone in the office. Um, wrong. It was me, my name is Matt Van Hoven and I'm the editor of this news blog, sitting here at my desk at MediaBistro HQ in New York. You know, that little city on the right coast.

Furthermore, the guys seem to have forgotten a few points about the situation. Namely, for better or worse, AgencySpy is a news site. We happened to cover the transition of Al Kelly from Fallon to TBWA LA, which means our coverage of this piece is news. Which means by taping it and posting it on YouTube I was not infringing on any Copyrights. I was practicing the very legal art of paying attention and then telling others what I saw.

What's more; you probably broke some laws by unabashedly using the music from one Paul Simon's hit song, You Can Call Me Al, not to mention copying step for step the famous music video.

So here's what I'm saying. I have a raw copy of this video. Should you choose to push the matter I am fully capable of posting it elsewhere, embedding the code in the original story and starting over. Let's see, there's Vimeo, Viddler, Brightcove et al. I can bounce the thing around all day. Care to chase me? You can call me Matt.

Update: I just want to note that this notice came from the video creators, not T\C\D.

Update 2 FYI when the complaint was filed, YouTube automatically pulled the video. So, I posted it on Viddler. Click here.

Update 3: Counter claim filed. Waiting.

More: "Our Fav Comments from the 'You Can Call Me Al' Debacle"