The BNP can rip off your works for ‘parodies’ – but only if it's not racist The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled on who can use copyrighted work in a parody, and said it’s fair game – as long as it’s not, er, sexist or racist. Traditionally, authors have been able to use moral rights to disassociate their work from a derivative. But this latest interpretation of the EU’s parody …
Rejoice, in an EU-free Britain, the right to parody will be restored!
Unless of course, it's a UKIP leaflet you're parodying... then the freedom-loving libertarians at UKIP will set their masonic chums in the local rozzas onto you to force you to delete your heretical utterings
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-complaint-prompts-police-to-question-blogger-9358634.html
The CJEU ruling acknowledged that authors have “a legitimate interest in ensuring that the work protected by copyright is not associated with such a message.”
What the court seemed concerned about in the current case was the image of people represented in the parody – not the rights of the author.
Actually not cause an offence - parody nearly always does, that is what it is for.
If I understand correctly this means that the parody exemption does not apply if it is used in a manner that _IS_ an offence. That is from the realm of bleeding obvious, do not see why it ended up being referred "upstairs" in the first place.
moiety, I suppose that if legislatures and judiciaries couldn’t distinguish between an -ism and a satirized -ism, one could avoid creating derivative satire and create original satire instead, such as Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
Generally parody allows you fair use of the material you are parodying
So you can rewrite a Billy Brag song to take the piss out of My Bragg - like Weird Al's parody of Nirvana.
But you can't use Mr Bragg's work to parody something else and claim your copyright violation is parody - like Weird Al using Gangsta paradise to parody the Amish
The intention is that for example, BP can't stop you protesting against BP by claiming that your use of their logo or pictures of one of their oil spills on your banner is copyright. But it doesn't allow you to use scenes from star wars for free in your attack of BP.
Claiming the parody exception for Intellectual Property A when it is used to parody Intellectual Property B is a separate issue.
What this ruling is saying, assuming I understood the article correctly, is that you can't parody Intellectual Property A *if* the resulting work is racist or sexist. Eg: If you parodied "Smells like Teen Spirit" as "Smells like [Your Favorite Racist Term Here] Spirit" the racism/sexism voids the exception and you can be sued.
There are two issues around parodies - one is what works qualify as parodies and the other is what parodies receive protection from copyright.
In the US, parodies must actually comment on the original work. Other countries have different definitions but the point to this decision is, I believe, is to say that even if your work qualifies as a parody, it will be denied protection from copyright if it is used to promote racism, sexism and other bad values.
Of course, the question - as raised in the article - is who decides what values are bad enough?
This one.
Defending your digital rights? Then you're a Nazi, says the Open Rights Group
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/01/defend_your_digital_rights_you_must_be_a_nazi_then/
Someone got all bent over a Downfall parody, and not because they are past the best buy date.
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