Disney Might Not Mind If You Make a Hannah Montana Video

This seems as appropriate a topic for a post as any for the last weekend in August: that the Walt Disney Co. apparently has no problem with this YouTube video showing a group of gay men cavorting to the Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana video "Party in the USA." This was reported in The New York Times, y'all, so it must be true. (Well, possibly not, but that's a story for another time.)

At any rate, even more amazing than the fact that the video is still up, and holding steady at close to 300,000 views since being posted four days ago, is that Disney Channels worldwide president of Rick Ross, called its creator to say how much he liked it. (It was created by David Fudge, a marketing guy at Esquire.) Cyrus herself allegedly likes it too, having tweeted its praises -- if that's not the sincerest form of flattery, I don't know what is.

From a business perspective, what's at work here? Maybe Ross has just finished reading Chris Anderson's "Free: The Future of a Radical Price." As big a star as Cyrus is, it doesn't hurt for her music to get extra coverage, as long as the companies involved don't get all tied up in their underwear over things like rights issues. Anderson would argue that the real money is in merchandise and concerts, although one should question whether there's a huge market among adults for Hannah Montana t-shirts and attending Hannah Montana concerts under situations other than chaperoning. Still, when you consider that the company owning the song is Disney, this is fairly amazing.