What does the above Saturday Night Live parody of Wes
Anderson films have in common with the 2 Live Crew song “Pretty
Woman?” Both were
made legally possible by a U.S. Supreme Court decision handed
down 20 years ago today.
The case, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, centered on 2 Live
Crew’s parody of the Ray Orbison ballad “Oh, Pretty Woman.”
Because the hip hop group was making money off the parody, a lower
court had decided that the
fair use doctrine did not apply.
But the high court disagreed, deciding unanimously that
commercial parody was fair use under
Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. It noted that the more
transformative a new work was, “the less will be the significance
of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a
finding of fair use.” From
DisCo’s Matt Schruers:
Campbell cemented the viability of commercial parody in
U.S. copyright jurisprudence, along with the principle of
“transformativeness” as one motivating principle of Congress’s
decision to enact fair use. The idea of “transformativeness” … has
helped ensure that innovative new commercial technologies, which
often involve copying but still increase the value and
accessibility of creative works, can come to market.
The anniversary of Campbell is important to mark “due
to the growing significance of fair use for commercial purposes and
businesses,” Schruers added. Though the importance of commercial
fair use is often overlooked, about
17 percent of U.S. GDP was produced by industries benefiting
from fair use and other copyright exceptions.
Have a favorite parody video or few? Share ’em in the comments.
You know, for liberty’s sake.
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