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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.
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...