Barack OBama Song Dispute

Corrigan told the Irish Voice that he was delighted when Black originally contacted him. "Sure, I told Shay, thinking it was a great idea and why not, sure it was all about having fun with the song," Corrigan said.

All was going smoothly for the band with various television and radio appearances in Ireland until a few weeks ago when they discovered that Black had his own version of their song on YouTube, and they were not being credited for being its original creators.

Angry and feeling betrayed, Corrigan confronted Black about the issue.

Black told the Irish Voice that this all started when two local men in California filmed him singing the song, additional versus included. They asked Black if they could upload the new song on YouTube and he agreed, where it has received nearly 200,000 hits to date.

Black emailed the Corrigan's to inform them that the song was on YouTube with the additional verses. Corrigan replied to Black's email saying they were happy with the result and suggested that the pair work together in the future promoting the song, including possible television appearances.

However, upon closer inspection, Corrigan noticed that the song had no mention of them so he asked Black to add the following: "Permission to add additional verses given to Shay Black by the Corrigan Brothers (Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys)." Black did as Corrigan asked and made sure that Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys were credited at the opening segment of the song on YouTube as the creators.

However by this stage, Black's version of the song had taken on a life of its own, making countless appearances on various websites (including Obama's official campaign site) and blogs stating that it was Shay Black that created the song.

"If one Google's "Shay" and 'There's No One As Irish As Barack O'Bama' then several links appear with Shay singing the song or being credited for creating our song," said Corrigan.

Upset and disgruntled at this, Corrigan, who feels they are losing the song that they have worked tirelessly to promote both in Ireland and the U.S., asked Black to edit the song completely for YouTube and to email people who stated that he was the creator of the song to set them straight.

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Nster.com