FOX SPURNS, THEN EMBRACES 'DIE HARD' PARODY (NYT)

By Nancy Vialatte

Although corporate attempts at viral marketing have met with mixed success in the past, 20th Century Fox recently embraced and improved a formerly spurned parody of “Die Hard” by NY-based “comic rock” band Guyz Nite.

Last year, when the group made a video for their song “Die Hard” using clips from the first three Bruce Willis films bearing the same name, Fox’s legal department quickly requested the video be removed from YouTube.

But, with the upcoming release of the fourth “Die Hard” film, it seems Fox has had a change of heart. The New York Times reports today that Fox’s marketing team contacted the band and offered to pay it to repost the video, using additional video clips to promote the new film. The new version of the video has been viewed almost 90,000 times on YouTube while the reposted old version has been viewed almost 100,000 times.

“We aggressively protect our intellectual property, but look for, welcome and support creative voices on the Internet, and in this case we really liked what they had done and we supported it” Fox spokesman Chris Petrikin told the NYT. “We felt it would be a win-win if we approached the band and worked with them to make the video official and above board so that we could help to promote it.”

“It’s a testament to the way that fan-based culture works,” Jim Marsh, 28, who uses the stage name Guy Manley as the band’s lead singer, said in a telephone interview on Saturday. “Creating a viral video is something that’s incredibly difficult. It’s really the people that are the most passionate who succeed.”

What’s more, Marsh and the band’s four other members went to the Radio City Music Hall premiere of the new “Die Hard” film, at Fox’s invitation. Yesterday, they were scheduled to tape an interview for possible inclusion, with their video, on the film’s DVD.

Corporate attempts at such viral marketing have met with mixed success, and some studios try to avoid an overt connection to online video parodies or mash-ups. The “Die Hard” video, with its jaunty tune and irreverent plot summaries of the first three movies, is reminiscent of “Seven Minute Sopranos,” a tightly edited video guide to the first six seasons of the HBO series. That video was later revealed to be the work of an HBO employee. But the members of Guyz Nite say they had no connection to Fox when they created the song.

Fox representatives also dismissed suggestions that the Guyz Nite video might lose popularity once the studio’s involvement was revealed. “The video has been huge, as the number of views on YouTube can attest,” Mr. Petrikin said. “In terms of our involvement, why should something that people enjoy be any less ‘cool’ because it is supported by a film studio?”