...A music label's efforts to block a (relatively tame) parody of James Blunt's ubiquitous hit You're Beautiful has "Weird Al" Yankovic fighting back publicly, and using his Web site as a tool to do so..."Weird Al" takes this stuff seriously, bless him.
According to Yankovic, Blunt himself gave his blessing to a song called You're Pitiful...[b]ut after Yankovic finished recording the parody, Atlantic Records, Blunt's label, told Yankovic that he couldn't release [it]... Of course, it's not hard to circulate a song these days, and Yankovic has helped that process along by making an MP3 of the track available for free download on his website...
"I have a long-standing history of respecting artists' wishes," Yankovic writes. "So if James Blunt himself were objecting, I wouldn't even offer my parody for free on my Web site. But since it's a bunch of suits -- who are actually going against their own artist's wishes -- I have absolutely no problem with it."
The front page of Al's website has the download links.
And sometime soon, we're gonna get a new "Weird Al" album. Yay-ness!