Today, I saw a very well done parody video of one of Taylor Swift’s new songs. After watching, I thought of its implications in terms of copyright, and decided that this video indeed fell under fair use. The purpose of the work is purely entertainment. Since this entertainment is geared, I suspect, to an audience who generally dislikes Swift, the effect on the original song’s potential market is null. With two of the four factors of fair use checked off, I would like to bring a bit of my frenemy Goldstein into this discussion. As noted from his discussion of software protection under copyright, copyright does not protect the method or process of a text, only its expression (191). The creator of this video certainly does not replicate Swift’s expression of her song, since he changes the lyrics entirely and score slightly; his message/theme is entirely different from hers. The sound itself can be thought of as the process: copying that is perfectly legal.
Only a few minutes after thinking of this blog post, I remembered another parody video of a different nature. This video was made by a TV station in order to promote its own show. Since I’m running out of space, I want to consider if this economic element changes the argument for fair use. What makes Equestria Girls different from I Knew Gary Was Trouble? Do they fall under the same or different cases of fair use?
I agree that this video falls under fair use as a parody. However, i don’t necessarily agree that it is trying to appeal to a crowd that dislikes taylor swift. I personally like taylor swift and still enjoyed this pokemon parody of the song because it’s funny.
I think I’ll correct that. I don’t mean people who deliberately dislike Swift, I mean people who generally do not listen to her music; people who are outside the market entirely and have no strong feelings one way or the other.