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007 Dis(Gold)members Austin Powers

Posted by Roblimo on from the submitted-over-and-over dept.

gpinzone writes, "MGM and Danjaq, the British company that controls the Bond film license, have obtained a cease-and-desist order against New Line Cinema that prohibits New Line from calling the latest installment of Mike Myers' shagadelic spy series Austin Powers in Goldmember . The full article is available from E!-Online."

7 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Goldmember by Metrollica · · Score: 5, Informative

    Other articles:
    Movies.go.com
    Yahoo
    BBC news
    CNN

    From CNN: Rappers 2 Live Crew, for example, took their use of the Roy Orbison song "Pretty Woman" all the way to the Supreme Court, which then reached the explicit conclusion that a parody falls within the scope of the fair-use defense. It would, however, be impossible to market the film as "Goldmember" during that process.

    --



    --Metrollica
  2. Re:Precedent by Oink.NET · · Score: 5, Informative
    They got upset about "The Spy Who Shagged Me" too, and were rewarded for it. You can bet they'll try that trick again!


    From a Yahoo story: MGM initially challenged the use of "The Spy Who Shagged Me," an obvious play on the 1977 Bond title "The Spy Who Loved Me." But that dispute was settled when New Line agreed to include trailer play for MGM movies on its Austin Powers sequel.

  3. Re:A thought parodies were protected ? by JimPooley · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ah, but Weird Al can't release the parodies without permission from the song's owner.
    There are some songs (Chicken Pot Pie, Snack All Night) which he'll do live but wasn't allowed to release on record, and are not included in the live video. This is because the song's owner wouldn't allow the release of those parodies.

    Neil Innes wrote brilliant Beatles parodies for "The Rutles", and despite being a pal of the Beatles, (The Bonzoes hit single "Urban Spaceman", also penned by Innes, was produced by Paul McCartney!), he had the rights taken away from him in court when the owners of the Beatles songs successfully sued. These rights to songs such as "Ouch", "Doubleback Alley", "Cheese and Onions" etc eventually ended up with all the other old Beatles material as being owned by Michael Jackson!
    The late George Harrison in later years attemped to buy back the rights for his mate Neil, but with no success.
    Neil Innes later successfully sued Oasis for stealing the melody of his song "How sweet to be an idiot", which considering many Oasis songs could be labelled beatles parodies is nicely ironic!

    So. Parodies can get you in legal hot water, and if the Bond people want to force the name of the new Austin Powers movie to be changed, there are precedents.

    Besides which, the Austin Powers joke got old after the first movie...

    --

    "Information wants to be paid"
  4. Re:Of course, parody is protected by fair use... by Danielle+Gatton · · Score: 4, Informative
    There have been many cases over the years in which judges have accepted various parodies as fair use. The most definitive ruling, though, came in the 1994 case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, in which 2 Live Crew was being sued over their "parody" of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman". The US Supreme Court here clearly established parody as a potential fair use. From that ruling:

    Parody presents a difficult case. Parody's humor, or in any event its comment, necessarily springs from recognizable allusion to its object through distorted imitation. Its art lies in the tension between a known original and its parodic twin. When parody takes aim at a particular original work, the parody must be able to "conjure up" at least enough of that original to make the object of its critical wit recognizable.


    The idea of "conjuring up" the original work has become both a basis for protection, and a limitation. You can use enough of the original so that the target of your parody is obvious, but you can't simply copy the original, hoping to benefit from its success, and then throw in a few jokes in order to gain protection. Commercial parodies are just as entitled to this protection as non-commercial ones, as well.
  5. Re:A thought parodies were protected ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ah, but Weird Al can't release the parodies without permission from the song's owner.

    Actually, he can. It's his own decision to not release those parodies that haven't been approved by the original artist.

  6. Old news by leviramsey · · Score: 4, Informative

    This has beeen discussed ad infinitum on alt.fan.james-bond many times before. This isn't a copyright or trademark dispute. It's a standard part of the MPAA.

    Basically, MGM has a problem with how Goldmember is being marketed (the trailer comes too close to some of the sight gags in Goldfinger, mainly). They're not suing New Line; they've complained to the MPAA panel that governs member's promotions and titling and so forth and convinced them to bar New Line from promoing the film until they work out their differences.

    I think MGM/Danjaq/EON are being morons, but this is not a threat to parodies of Bond films outside the MPAA. If you want to make a homemade porn film titled "GoldenCock", you can.

    That said, it is nice to see the Bond series getting some play on Slashdot. Enough of those crap Sci-Fi series like Star Trek and Star Wars...

  7. Re:Of course, parody is protected by fair use... by MtViewGuy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think MGM and Dunjaq will in the end lose the case because of the precedent set by MAD magazine back in the 1950's, where the courts in the end ruled that parody is a protected First Amendment right.

    Somehow, both MGM and Dunjaq seem to have forgotten that the entire Austin Powers concept is a parody on the whole idea of spy movies in the first place! (rolling eyes skyward)