This is a clip of a man crying on A&E’s Intervention:

And this is a “remix” of his cry using, among other things, AutoTune software to create a melody from the pitch of his cry:

The creators of this remix (whose names aren’t identified) have created a new song that isn’t far in production value from what T-Pain might create. What’s impressive is that it’s a musical creation based off a non-musical piece of audio. There is no melody, no beat, no chorus, no hook, no bass line, and no real sense of pitch in the original audio.

But if the creators of the remix wanted to sell the entire work — including the video — without the permission of A&E or the men in the video, could they do so without risking a lawsuit for copyright infringement?

In my opinion, there’s no doubt that they should be able to raise a fair use defense. It’s completely transformative and it has no potential to hurt the earning potential of A&E or the men in the video. If anything, A&E gains because I hadn’t even heard about Intervention prior to this video. Plus, the men in the video now have a real chance of profiting off of their Internet fame.

Yet, because the video consists entirely of clips from the show and because any parodic message is hardly obvious, it’s easy to imagine how a judge might fail to see any valid fair use defense.