RE: (no subject)

I am certainly no expert on Canadian constitutional law, but I know that the First Amendment plays a large role in the right to parody under U.S. law. Many other countries don't have the explicit guarantees of freedom of speech found in the U.S. Constitution, or, at the least, are much more accustomed to interpreting such "rights" in a more limited way (the French case involving Yahoo being a good example of a suit that would never have gotten off the ground here). That's not to say that either the U.S. or the rest of the world is wrong, just that the approaches to speech are different.

Kevin Grierson

Kevin W. Grierson
Willcox & Savage, P.C.
1800 Bank of America Center
One Commercial Place
Norfolk, Virginia 23510

mailto:kgrierson[_at_]wilsav.com
ph: 757/628-5603 fx: 757/628-5566
http://www.wilsav.com

>>> dbasskin[_at_]mail.cmrra.ca 08/27/01 10:19AM >>>
Hopefully someone will pipe up with the 2LiveCrew story (Acuff-Rose v. Campbell), but it's worth noting that Canadian law doesn't extend protection to parodies, nor do the laws of many other nations.

Remember, "We Are The World" is just the name of a song, not US policy. Er, well, sorry ... it IS current US policy, but it's not law yet, anyway.

David Basskin

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-cni-copyright[_at_]cni.org [mailto:owner-cni-copyright[_at_]cni.org] On Behalf Of Amita Guha
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2001 1:30 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: RE: (no subject)

I know for a fact that the right to parody is protected, though I don't know specifically which law protects it. As long as you make it clear it's a parody, they can't do anything about it. You might want to change one detail, like the color of Ronald's outfit, or his name or something. That's what the South Park guys did when Cheetos (or was it Cheez Doodles?) wouldn't let them use the product name...so they used Cheezy Poofs instead.

--Amita

> I have a question regarding copyright for film. I intend to make
> a very short
> film with the character of 'Ronald Mcdonald', complaining about
> his job, and
> the company he works for. How far does copyright extend in this
> regard? I am
> even allowed to have someone looking like Ronald Mcdonald, if I
> never say the
> name? or is the likeness copywrighted?
>
> I could also do it so that he is in shadow, darkness, a la the witness
> protection program interviews we sometimes see on tv.
>
> I don't know how much I can get away with regarding copyright.
>
> However, I recently saw a segment on the 'Man Show' Where the
> character of
> 'Grimace' was a guest. he went crazy backstage and killed several
people,
> creating a blood bath. They called him by his name, and he was
> indeed a big
> smiling purple blob. So I don't know how they got away with that.
>
> Can you shed some light on the subject?
Received on Tue Aug 28 2001 - 14:39:28 GMT