Many of you have heard of the musical artist “Weird Al” Yankovic. “Weird Al” is famous for taking popular songs and changing the lyrics to something humorous while keeping the same style as the original song. The big question surrounding the music on “Weird Al” is this: Can he take someone else’s song without asking permission? The answer is yes.” This is because “Weird Al” creates a parody of the original song.

I’m told Yankovic gets permission from the song owners just to maintain good relations and avoid the hassle of controversy. Copyright law has created a special section regarding fair use that refers to parody and satire. So what exactly is the difference between a parody (which would allow “Weird Al” to do his music) and a satire (which are protected by fair use) and a joke (which is not protected by fair use?) )? My legal definition of a parody, drawn from an examination of cases in this area, is as follows:

1. A new copyrighted work

2. Based on a previously copyrighted work

3. To such an extent that previous work is clearly recognizable

4. But don’t take more of the copyrighted work than is necessary

5. That criticizes or comments, at least in part, on the theme or style of the previous work, AND

6. Not likely to hurt the value of previous work

While most parody examples turn out to be humorous, humor is not a requirement at all. Because the songs on “Weird Al” qualify as a parody, you don’t need to get permission from or pay the original creator of the song.

Unlike a parody, a satire can stand on its own and make a statement without borrowing from an original work. A satire tends to make fun of social conventions. When the courts are presented with a case of satire, they don’t say, “This is satire, so we’ll give it more freedom.” Rather, they carefully expose the way in which the new work comments on some social condition and use it as a significant factor in their analysis.

In a recent case, artist Jeff Koons was hired to create a series of paintings for the Deutsch Bank of Germany. He scanned publicity images and his own photographs into a computer and digitally superimposed the scanned images against backgrounds of pastoral landscapes to comment on the ways in which our most basic desires are represented in popular images.

Koons used a photo by Andrea Blanch titled “Gucci Silk Sandals” and incorporated part of the photo into his own artwork, which featured four pairs of women’s feet and calves dangling over images of various dessert plates. The court explained the satire in detail when describing the social commentary being made, and weighed in favor of Koon’s appropriation because the use of the photo was transformative and because its purpose was to demonstrate how advertising wheted our various appetites, not to sell. shoes by Gucci.

Koons used Blanch’s work to comment on its social significance rather than exploit its creative virtues. Koons wanted to “comment on the ways in which some of our most basic appetites for food, play, and sex are mediated by popular images.” Doesn’t this sound like the very definition of satire?

In contrast, a joke is something said or done to provoke laughter or amusement. It can be a one line story or a funny one with a long overdue joke. A parody or satire does not have to be funny. The difference between a parody or satire on the one hand and jokes on the other is crucial, as jokes are generally not copyrighted while a parody is. In general, jokes are considered ideas, and copyright law only protects expressions of ideas that are fixed in tangible form. In short, parody and satire are protected by copyright law as a subset of the fair use doctrine, while jokes (although some of them can be very funny) are not a protected subject matter covered by copyright law. From author.