It had to happen, of course. “Weird Al” Yankovic has produced a song, complete with animated video, that parodies the whole RIAA anti-piracy battle, titled “Don’t Download This Song.” Of course, in true Weird Al style, the song is downloadable from the page, in MP3 format. Not being too hip on major releases (or pop music in general), I don’t know if the song is an original by Yankovic or if it’s a parody of someone else’s, though it does seem to smack a little bit of one of those “We Are the World” kind of songs.

Yankovic hits on the RIAA and their legal tactics in these lyrics: “You don’t want to mess with the R-I-Double-A; They’ll sue you if you burn that CD-R; It doesn’t matter if you’re a grandma or a 7-year-old girl; They’ll treat you like the evil, hard-bitten criminal scum you are!” He later makes fun of the relative minor infraction of downloading versus the huge amount of money artists make, though in truth, that should be targeted against the fact that downloads hit not the artists (who make more money from tours), but the even more ludicrously rich recording labels, who are themselves parasitic on the artists.

I love the ending, especially each line’s after-shout, as the song fades out:

Don’t download this song (No, no no no no, no no noooo!)
You’ll burn in hell before too long (And you deserve it!)
And buy the CD (Just buy it!)
Like you know that you should (You cheap bastard!)
Oh, don’t download this song!

I won’t ruin the rest of the song for you, it’s pretty good. Just listen–and do download that song! And remember Tommy!