Re: Lame "dilution" assertion by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

On Tue, Apr 20, 1999, Adrienne Meddock <ameddock[_at_]bambi.acc.nccu.edu> wrote:
>
> To add fuel to the fire, there is the line of comment based on the
> concurrence to the 2 Live Crew (Acuff-Rose v. Campbell) case that
> says that to be a parody, the new use must "target" the work from
> which it takes. Judge Posner wrote an influential article claiming
> that target parody, as it is becoming known, is fair use, but mere
> borrowings that do not make fun of the source upon which the parody
> version is based are really derivative works and must seek permission
> and pay the original author. This is a thread in the Dr. Seuss case.
> There, the new authors used Seuss to parody OJ, but not to parody
> Seuss. Therefore, in these terms, it was a "source" parody and not
> a "target" parody.
>
> Making fun of Dilbert seems to fit within the "target" area and thus
> be distinguishable from Seuss. But than again, they didn't send me
> the scarry c&d letter :) And of course, that only addresses the
> copyright issue, and not the dilution argument. Has anyone mention
> the pre-federal dilution case of Hormel v. Henson? There is parody
> that was found to be non-diluting and was in the "taget" realm.

Hormel v. Hanson -- that was the "Spam" incident I believe? I will definitely look into that. yes I agree the "target" of the parody here is distinguishable from the *Seuss* decision. On a side note, I am concerned that some judges might not comprehend a comment put forth by a particular parodist, and decide erroneously that the work is not transformative.

The Dilbert parodies really have only one comment: that the author finds Dilbert cartoons and its ilk to be profound banal. I think that's a valid statement. But I could easily imagine some judges missing that.

Michael R. Juhre
AIG Law Dept.
70 Pine Street, 28/70
New York, NY 10270
tel (212) 770-3446
fax (212) 480-6310
<michael.juhre[_at_]aig.com> Received on Wed Apr 21 1999 - 14:32:40 GMT