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Research fit for entertainment. Not to say it isn't serious.
This year the inclusion of a song recorded in 1914 led to a takedown notice, which generated the appropriate consternation, such as here:
Ig-nobel takedown: discussion at Slashdot
What's Disney good for? Things like this. Copyright for a reasonable amount of time has its merits, but clearly it has been abused as much as it has been prolonged, and always just in time to avoid turning over some works to public domain.
Those who most fervently argue against any copyright at all claim that it stifles creativity and that original (artistic or other) creations are not possible anyway, we all just remix and borrow each other's work. I don't completely agree with that, but it depends on how you look at derivative works. It makes a difference if you copy someone else's painting or novel or symphony verbatim, then just modify a few strokes here and there, or if you borrow a theme, an idea for a character, a recognisable figure, transform it more or less and place it in a completely different context.
Mash-up and montage works can be fun to make and to watch, but they're not necessarily as original as something made from scratch – by painting the complete scenery instead of cutting and pasting readymade parts, or recording all material for the song instead of using samples.
Actually I was going to comment on the phonetic research on domestic cat vocalisations that received a prize. Maybe for another day.