Blog Post 8: Jamie Rand

The parody cases listed here are kind of a surprise to me. I've always been curious about what constitutes parody--having grown up on Weird Al, and wondering how he never got his pants sued off--and the list of these cases follows a pattern. A number of the "important factors" concern themselves with how the parody was handled; it seems to me that there can be small similarities, or the parody itself must "poke fun at or ridicule" the original work. If neither of those occur, the parody loses fair use, such as in this case: "Not a fair use: An author mimicked the style of a Dr. Seuss book while retelling the facts of the O.J. Simpson murder trial in The Cat NOT in the Hat! A Parody by Dr. Juice. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the book was a satire, not a parody, because the book did not poke fun at or ridicule Dr. Seuss. Instead, it merely used the Dr. Seuss characters and style to tell the story of the murder. Important factors: The author’s work was nontransformative and commercial. (Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. Penguin Books USA, Inc., 109 F.3d 1394 (9th Cir. 1997).)" (heh, and just to be on the safe side, here's the citation: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-c.html#2) So far as I understand it, then, according to fair use, "nontransformative" satire is different from parody. That makes sense, I suppose. But mostly, it seems to me that it comes down to a question of money ("commercial," as that example says): if someone should have made money for their work, and they didn't, then you're in violation. As for how those examples affect me: they've made me paranoid. The last thing I want to do is get sued for trying to show my students examples of good writing. The TEACH Act spells out what we can and can't do as teachers, but even still, as that website says, "It is also important to note that TEACH does not supersede fair use or existing digital license agreements." So I guess my plan is to make sure I don't step on anyone's toes while I'm talking about comma splices. Also, it turns out that Weird Al "seek[s] permission of the songwriters before recording their parodies." Who woulda thought?