Fair Use Findings Episode #1 The Mattel Barbie case

Attorney Steve® Fair Use Parody Cases - The Mattel Barbie case found to be a fair use for Defendant.

This is general legal information only and not legal advice. 

"A parody is a "literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule." Id. at 580, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quoting AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY 1317 (3d. 1992)). For the purposes of copyright law, a parodist may claim fair use where he or she uses some of the "elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works." Id. The original work need not be the sole subject of the parody; the parody "may loosely target an original" as long as the parody "reasonably could be perceived as commenting on the original or criticizing it, to some degree." Id. at 580-81, 583, 114 S.Ct. 1164.

That a parody is in bad taste is not relevant to whether it constitutes fair use; "it would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of [a work]." Id. at 582-83, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quoting Bleistein v.Donaldson Lithographing Co., (1903))."

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