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Parody and Satire Videos, Which Is Fair Use?
Hugh Pickens writes "Ben Sheffner writes that both sides in Don Henley's lawsuit against California US Senate candidate Chuck DeVore (R) over campaign 'parody' videos that used Henley's tunes set to lyrics mocking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) have now filed cross-motions for summary judgment, teeing up a case that will likely clarify the rules for political uses of third-party material. The motions focus largely on one issue: whether the videos, which use the compositions 'The Boys of Summer' and 'All She Wants to do is Dance,' are 'parodies,' and thus likely fair uses, or, rather, unprivileged 'satires.' The Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994), said that a parody comments on the work itself; a satire uses the work to comment on something else, so for Henley, this is a simple case: DeVore's videos do not comment on Henley's songs but use Henley's songs to mock Boxer. DeVore argues that his videos do indeed target Henley, who has long been identified with liberal and Democratic causes, and asserts that the campaign chose to use Henley's songs for precisely that reason. 'DeVore's videos target Henley only in the loosest sense,' writes Sheffner, 'and his brief's arguments ... sound dangerously close to the post hoc rationalizations dismissed as "pure shtick" and "completely unconvincing" by the Ninth Circuit in Dr. Seuss Enters. v. Penguin Books USA, Inc., 109 F.3d 1394 (1997).' The case also bears directly on the recent removal of the 'Downfall' clips from YouTube where many journalists have almost automatically labeled the removed videos 'parodies' while the vast majority aren't, says Sheffner."
I was under the impression that for the most part political speech enjoyed a far higher level of protection than most and this seems to fall very clearly into that category.
Parody but don't *use* the original work. When Weird Al makes a song parody (ignore for the moment that he gets permission and probably shares in royalties) he and his team don't just take the original music and sing over it. It's RE-RECORDED. That's the key. You can get away with the similarities and same song composition but you have to at least lift a finger and do the work yourself. You wanna be lazy, then the consequences are paying someone else, either for use of the work or as damages in a lawsuit later.
Political speech enjoys higher levels of protection, but misuse of copyrighted works is not a free speech issue. It is a, oh what's the word, copyright issue. You do understand that, in order to work at all, copyright trumps free speech, except in limited circumstances like fair use and parody.
Republicans have a long, sordid history of using music without permissions, they especially love to use songs from artists who are not Republicans. Google 'republicans stealing music.'
This was the first page that came up: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/77309/a_pattern_of_republicans_stealing_music_from_bands_who_don't_like_them/
Here's another: http://www.theinsider.com/news/1264982_Can_the_Republicans_Stop_Stealing_Everybody_s_Music
And another: http://crooksandliars.com/2008/06/14/mccain-caught-stealing-democratic-music
It's pretty amazing how often they do it, and get away with it despite the protests and legal actions of the artists involved. It's the Republican party saying, "We don't have to play by the rules, fuck you!" to artists who disagree with them. Classy.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Use of Don Henley's well-known music implies that he supports the DeVore, which he clearly does not. In that sense, it is defamatory to Don Henley. Also, there argument that "It is parody because Henley is a liberal" is absurd, they seem to be arguing that it would be unlawful to rip off a well known conservative's music, but it is perfectly ok to rip off a well-known liberal?!? This is the same race that saw Carly Fiorina's "Demonic Sheep" ads? I think it will go down in history as the pinnacle of Repugnantcan douchebaggery, an affront to intellectual conservatives everywhere.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Satire is perfectly legal. What the summary is saying is that you cannot repackage someone else's copyrighted works in a satire against a third party.
Of course both songs were written and recorded over 20 years ago, they should both be in the public domain by now if copyright had a reasonable duration (Ok I would consider it reasonable if their copyright expired in 2012).
Personally, I think this case is a perfect example of why copyright should be shorter. These songs sum up the message that DeVore wants to convey about Barbara Boxer and our culture would be much richer if such songs could be used for the purpose intended here.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because Democrats never get CAUGHT stealing music, doesn't mean they don't steal.
Actually, it's more like: Democrats get whatever they want from their good buddies at the RIAA and get a pass from lefty music artists. The charge never comes up because no lefty musician or music company EVER MAKES IT. (Ya don't eat your own, don't ya know.)
But the moment any Republican uses ANY music by any left-leaning musician, an army of lawyers and Old Media types scramble to find if they "stole" it. That just doesn't happen with Democrats.
Prime example: During the last Presidential election the McCain campaign was accused of "stealing" the song "Barracuda". The problem for the accusers was that the McCain campaign already had a contract with the company that held the rights to that song that allowed them to play it. Yet WEEKS of hay were made from a literal non-story because the original artist didn't like the McCain camp using it, despite them having met the legal requirements for use.
So forgive me if I take your "Republicans steal music" "evidence" with a MOUNTAIN of salt. History has taught me to deeply distrust leftist "news" sources.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Well, you, and the general public at large, might see them as different, legally they are not. If you take a Mickey Mouse comic from way back when, and just copy it with a new word bubble, obviously copyright violation, right? If you draw your own character that looks sort of like Mickey Mouse? That's just as much copyright violation, even if you drew every last pen stroke yourself. Fair use, which includes review and parody, is a defense against copyright violation via derivative work. Penny Arcade got in trouble because drawing Strawberry Shortcake is a copyright violation, and fair use is their only possible defense. However, fair use does not allow for making copies of one person's copyright to parody a third-party. Their own lawyers told them that, and they took it down. That's the law.
Mind you, the law is subject to change. Twenty years ago judges verbally berated Sega and Nintendo lawyers on separate occasions for abuse of copyright law. Nintendo tried to sue Game Genie for allowing owners to modify their game code. The judges said that people are free to enjoy their purchase any way they want, and artists have no right to dictate how their works are enjoyed. This opinion is now scoffed at, and artists very much do somehow have the right to dictate how purchasers of their works are allowed to enjoy them. Sega, on the other hand, like Nintendo, used early early DRM to lock out third party game carts on their consoles. They sued Accolade for copyright violation for cracking the DRM. A judge got very angry with them, calling them monopolists and dismissing with prejudice, saying no law permits them to lock people out of their hardware. Now of course, there is such a law, and nobody bats an eye at locked down systems. Crazy that only 20 years ago the very idea was disgusting, and now you're a madman for objecting.
That may seem off-topic, but both those cases were about derivative works. Game Genie was about the right of the consumer to create their own derivative works, which we're now told we do not have. Though we're told by RIAA/MPAA/TV execs, and might possibly still have that right, if you find a judge who will follow the law. And the Sega case was about the right to reverse engineer for compatibility, which we certainly no longer have. Well, except the DMCA, which outlawed it in the first place, has exceptions for compatibility, but those exemptions to not stop Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, from suing anyway. So, while parody defenses are pretty set, so were those rights, and they changed, though perhaps not legally... Precedent is just a suggestion. In the unlikely event that a judge allows wholesale copying of third-party copyright material in unrelated parodies, that's a hidden boon for The Pirate Bay, which would quickly be renamed to The Parody Bay, and totally legal! Just put a quick mockery of your political figure of choice into your torrent description, and the download along side it is protected as a fair use parody! ;)
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI