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What Protections Exist for Parody Sites?
jolchefske asks: "I'm a small time guy running a small time parody website of a medium sized school district. My site lampoons the real website of the Seattle School District -- a district currently over 30 million dollars in the hole due to accounting "irregularities." My question is, what protections (if any) do parody websites have against copyright litigation? The district is 30+ mil in the red but they've got the lawyers knocking on my door."
What exactly are they charging you with? Defamation?
Parody is not per se protected, but parodies can satisfy the fair use defense to copyright infringement. Check out the Supreme Court decision in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose. (I spent a looong time reading this case after it came out.) There are various tests applied by the court to draw the line.
Eff.org and chillingeffects.org have very good general guides to online free speech issues. Specific litigation advice must come from a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction if things get ugly.
IANAL. That said, I think I'd build new icons, images, and work on making the site resemble the Seattle Public School site. You have some images that are very clearly mirrored and lightly tweaked. I think that might be damaging to you.
Also, If you are using html code from the SPS site, I'd ditch it. make your own.
You can make your site look VERY close to thiers, but there is a fine line.
Just my wild ass guess, but there ya go.
This came up for me once. Sometimes people just can't take a good yo' mamma joke.
When Stan Morris speaks, people listen.
Parody and Satire
Parody or satire is difficult to deal with, but if applied to a public figure is clearly protected by the First Amendment because the exaggeration or distortions of the truth are not intended to be taken as fact.
The case of Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Fallwell is an example. In that case, Hustler Magazine printed a fake advertisement that parodied a Campari Liquer advertising campaign. In the Hustler publication, the advertisement contained a make-believe interview with Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority and a television evangelist, in which he talked about his "first time" to experience sexual intercourse. The vulgar "recounting" of Falwell's "first sexual encounter" was set in an outhouse with him having sex with his mother. Falwell, a teetotaler, was also portrayed as being drunk.
Falwell was outraged by this caricature, so outraged, in fact, that he sued. His lawsuit for libel, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress went to trial. At the close of the evidence, the district court said that even if everything Falwell claimed were true there were no legal grounds upon which he could claim relief. The balance of the case was submitted to the jury, which returned a verdict for Falwell for intentional infliction of emotional distress, although the jury disallowed the libel claim.
On appeal, the Supreme Court heard the case on the First Amendment question of whether a state has authority to protect its citizens from the intentional infliction of emotional distress and whether a public figure may recover damages for his or her distress.
Specifically, the Chief Justice said the issue was whether a state may protect its citizens from patently offensive speech, and he said the First Amendment provided a safe haven for even that mode of speech. The Chief Justice reasoned that even though Falwell was not a public figure who held elective office, he was a public figure who had influence on public affairs and, as such, only had limited capacity to be distressed. The Chief Justice wrote that: "robust political debate encouraged by the First Amendment is bound to produce speech that is critical of those that hold public office or those public figures who are 'intimately involved in the resolution of important public questions or by reason of their fame, shape events in area of concern to society at large.'"
The Chief Justice ruled that even so outrageous a rogue, or impish rascal, depending on your point of view, as Larry Flynt is entitled to exercise his First Amendment freedoms in a manner best determined by Flynt, rather than being restricted by any state action.
--By Stan Morris from Gigalaw.com
But there are limits it would seem. The creators of Parkwars originally planned to completely parody The Phantom Menace, but thought better of it, at least in part to make sure lawyers didn't come a knocking.
Mr. Morris seems to make a convincing case clearing the way to do what you will with your modest proposal. But the real snag might be copyright.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) suits are illegal and Washington was the first state to make them illegal. Use google to read up on them and how you and your lawyer might use anti-SLAPP laws to keep the school district off your back. A friend of mine critized a public agency, they sued him, lost, then he countersued on the basis of them violating an anti-SLAPP law. He won a $1M+ judgement. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
You have little to fear provided you get a lawyer right away. Your site is a parody, presumably protected by the First Amendment, and it does not appear to have any content that could be termed libelous or obscene. I would observe that your site a) isn't very funny; b) isn't very robust; c) doesn't do a good job of explaining to someone like me, who is unfamiliar with Seattle or its school system, what it is that aggrieves you about it; d) links back to the official site in such a way as to confuse people. Maybe they will violate your civil rights and you can countersue.
Several people here have noted (correctly) that parody is considered "fair use"; there's a significant body of case law on this, and people here have provided links to some of that.
It's worth emphasizing, however, that fair use is a defense that you use in court, rather than a principle you cite to avoid court. As Brad Templeton notes in his 10 Big Myths about copyright explained,
So regardless of how solid your position may seem, if they're really coming after you, then you really do need a lawyer.