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'Baby Got Back' cover airs on 'Glee' without any credit to Jonathan Coulton

'Baby Got Back' cover airs on 'Glee' without any credit to Jonathan Coulton

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jonathan coulton
jonathan coulton

A week ago, Jonathon Coulton discovered a leak of a song from an upcoming episode of Glee that imitated his cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back," note-for-note. That episode aired last night and showed not only that the "cover" of his cover was very real, but also that the show's producers chose not to credit Coulton in any way. Speaking to Wired, Coulton reiterated that he has few — if any — legal options beyond the possibility that he could sue if Fox used the quack sound from his song. "There’s still a chapter yet to come," Coulton said.

"The next chapter is yet to come.

In a blog post update about the airing, Coulton also noted that Glee's producers "indicated that this was their general policy in regards to covers of covers" and, more egregiously, said that he "should be happy for the exposure." Given that Coulton has limited legal standing to do anything about the situation, as we explained last week, it's probably unlikely that Fox is going to do the right thing and made that exposure official by publicly admitting it used his rendition anytime soon — especially since, as Wired notes, this isn't the first time that the show has used covers from other artists.


Glee's version is for sale on iTunes — and in a somewhat tone-deaf move, the official iTunes Music Twitter account promoted the song last night. While Coulton explores his options, he asks fans to "please continue not to burn anything down."