When fandom and the pro world mix, strange things happen. The New York Times reports that sometimes, Disney blinks first.  It all began years ago with the first primitive fanvids made on someone's Betamax machine with a tape player hooked into the audio slot: fans putting together video to music and coming up with mixes that would make David Bowie blush.  Kirk and Spock, Napoleon and Ilya, Sam and Al, all serenaded by the voices of the day.  Technology has brought vidding to the home desktop, where with a few clicks (okay, a lot of clicks, and cutting, and screen effects, and make some sparkles) anyone with a mind to can now made a fanvid.  There's even an annual convention called Vividcon, held in Chicago.  Alas, as with all fan endeavors, there's always the risk of The Powers That Be sending along a Cease and Desist letter (or just suing and skipping the middleman altogether).

And now?

A mash-up featuring the song  "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" by artist Soulja Boy recently made a slash on YouTube, and by "recently," I mean it's been up for about five months.  The catch?  The mash-up stars Winnie the Pooh, Simba and Bambi.  And while any number of copyright violations have been pulled by the Web video giant (under the behest of the even bigger corporate giants) this one is still in place, and it's not the only one.  A SpongeBob Squarepants vid to the same song is also hugely popular on the site.

Nickelodeon (a subsidiary of Viacom) spokesman Dan Martinsen said, "Our audiences can creatively mash video from our content as much and as often as they like.  By the way, that was a very nice edit job by whoever did the SpongeBob mash."  This is a fascinating juxtaposition with Viacom policy of just a few years ago, when dealers at Vulkon were terrorized by a Paramount attorney who'd shown up with police to seize unlicensed Star Trek merchandise.

We came across this story via Fandom Lawyers, who think these comments have a great bearing on the possible legalities of fanvids of all sorts.  That "as much and as often as they like" is a phrase with a lot of rope attached.  Disney might still be leery of new uses of their property, but Viacom has just opened a very interesting door.