"Download This Song" is the second single from

MC Lars Andrew Robert Nielsen (born October 6, 1982), known professionally as MC Lars, is an American record producer, rapper, cartoonist, podcaster and educator. Lars is one of the self-proclaimed originators of "lit-hop", and is the founder and CEO of ...

' first studio album, ''

The Graduate ''The Graduate'' is a 1967 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Wi ...

'', and features

Jaret Reddick Jaret Ray Reddick is an American musician, singer, songwriter, composer, podcaster and actor, best known as the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Bowling for Soup. As a voice actor, Reddick is known for his work ...

Bowling for Soup Bowling for Soup (abbreviated as BFS) is an American rock band formed in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1994. The band consists of Jaret Reddick (lead vocals, guitar), Chris Burney (guitar, backing vocals), Gary Wiseman (drums, percussion, backing v ...

. The song uses sampling from

Iggy Pop James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. Called the " Godfather of Punk", he was the vocalist and lyricist of proto-punk band The Stooges, who w ...

's " The Passenger". In early 2006, this song was featured on the pop culture

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

show ''

Definitely Not the Opera ''Definitely Not the Opera'' (or simply ''DNTO'') was a magazine-style radio program focusing on aspects of pop culture and storytelling, that aired on CBC Radio One on Saturday afternoons from 1994 until 2016. The show's running time varied ov ...

'' during an exposé on geeks. It charted at number 29 on the Australia ARIA charts.

Fight versus RIAA

MC Lars, and the Nettwerk Music Group, became involved in a lawsuit that the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...

filed against David Greubel, a man from

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, who allegedly had committed

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...

through

peer-to-peer filesharing Peer-to-peer file sharing is the distribution and sharing of digital media using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology. P2P file sharing allows users to access media files such as books, music, movies, and games using a P2P software program th ...

over 600 music files, including " Sk8r Boi" by

Avril Lavigne Avril Ramona Lavigne ( ; born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. At age 16, she signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records. Her debut studio album, '' Let Go'' (2002), is the best-selling album of the 21 ...

, another Nettwerk client. Greubel's 15-year-old daughter Elisa contacted MC Lars, citing the "Download This Song" lyric, "they sue little kids downloading hit songs", and saying that she could identify with the song due to her family's situation. In response, Nettwerk, which denounced the suit, announced that it would pay all of the family's legal fees, as well as any fines should the family lose. Furthermore, they arranged for representation for the family by Chicago lawyer Charles Lee Mudd Jr., who had previously defended other people

subpoena A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...

ed by the RIAA.

Music video

The music video was featured on

TiVo TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fe ...

in early 2007. Parts of the music video parody the common iTunes commercial with blacked-out figures dancing on a color background. It also shows numerous people listening to music on

iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...

s and Sony PSPs, including a punk kid, skaters, and people at a gym.

Track listing

# "Download This Song" # "Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock" (featuring The Matches) # "Rockstar" # "Download This Song" (

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devi ...

)

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2006 singles MC Lars songs Intellectual property activism Songs about the Internet Nettwerk Records singles 2006 songs