The Economics and Staggering Legal Mess of Rebecca Black

One side of the tug-of-war triangle belongs to Los Angeles-based producers, Christopher Lowe and Ian Hotchkiss. The Smoking Gun reports that the pair registered the copyright to "Friday" ten days after the song went viral. They also claim to have written the script and played a big part in the video's success. On another side is vanity video shop Ark Music Factory which was paid $2,000 by Black's mother to organize the production. Ark disputes Lowe and Hotkiss's claim and say that their own Patrice Wilson wrote the lyrics. Rebecca Black's camp, the third side, is fighting Ark and the producers over the rights to the song, lyrics and video. But since Rebecca Black is the star, Ark holds a signed contract and the producers possess the only copyright, it's a big mess. 

Although "Friday" is commonly regarded as the kind of song that makes you want to jam pencils into your ears, we sort of feel sorry for Rebecca Black. Half a decade away from being able to vote, she now finds herself the center of a business governed by a hazy set of intellectual property laws. As the 13-year-old said herself on Twitter , "Thanks for all the messages regarding the $2.99 fee added to Friday video, I have NOTHING to do with this!!"

The money estimates

So how much money are they fighting over? The video has three main streams of revenue: YouTube ads, song downloads and any extraneous fees Black earns for her newfound fame. Around the time of the March letter, Forbes overestimated the number of music downloads by about a million and that Black had earned a low six-figures amount. These reports surfaced only about ten days after the video was released on March 14. Not bad.