Satire: What can I get away with?
You’ve probably heard all three of these words; satire, parody, and spoof.
Here we’ll get into satire, and furthermore, how it pertains to copyright law. More specifically, we’ll get into how far satire is covered by the fair use doctrine.
Satire is generally seen as a literary genre, though it is not always so strictly defined. Satire can actually extend, in the actual practice, into the graphic arts, performing arts, filmmaking, music, etcetera. Satire generally focuses on human vice and shortcomings, and oftentimes focuses on political, or governmental foolishness. In effect, satire is pretty much the idea of telling a story that is, in a poetic sense, more true than the actual facts, by taking the human motivations and shortcomings which cause a problem or folly, and seeing that through to extreme conclusions for the sake of comedy or social commentary.
Spoofs and parodies are generally seen as being more light hearted and strictly for comedy, whereas satire is seen as something that is usually making a statement, either on society, the government, human nature, or the nature of art.
Satire is usually less specific, broadly mocking themes such as say, alcohol addiction, political over spending, greed, etcetera. Or satire can target another genre, such as the Naked Gun movies, which satirize the police movie genre that was popular at the time.
Spoofs are usually more specific. For example, a scene in a movie where a character runs across the street may be spoofed in say, MAD magazine, in a scene where the character runs across the street and slips on a banana peel.
Parodies are usually send-ups of an individual work of art.
Parodies are fully protected on the grounds that the parody is actually a parody of that individual work. It may seem like splitting hairs, but remember, the courts often times do nothing but split hairs for weeks on end!
For example, if you’re walking through a toy store and you see a Bratz doll, and you are offended by the idea of selling sexualized toys to children, so you respond by selling a line of dolls based on Bratz, wherein all of the characters are prostitutes, that would be covered by first amendment fair use doctrine, as long as you could reasonably argue that your creation is a direct response to the original work.
On the other hand, if you hate moustaches, so you release a line of Ninja Turtles wearing ridiculous moustaches, your use of the Ninja Turtles is not covered by fair use doctrine. The parody has to actually be a parody of the work that it appropriates.
Satire, on the other hand, by its stricter definition, is not really subject to copyright law, simply because you cannot copyright broad concepts like “greed”, nor can you copyright a genre of film.
If you write a novel that features Superman and Barbie fighting crime, and you use that to put forth some social satire, your use of Superman and Barbie might not be protected. Unless your parody actually makes some content on the characters you appropriate, your satire might not be protected under fair use.
Beyond copyright infringement, though, satire is entirely protected within the US. You can use George W. Bush as the comedic anti-hero in a novel, for example. No matter how foolish you present the character as being, no matter what happens to him, you are fully protected, as public figures are generally seen as fair game for ridicule, at least from a legal perspective.
This right is one of the most important and well protected within the US. Being able to voice complaints about one’s government is, in fact, the very idea that the US was founded upon, and is absolutely, objectively vital to maintaining a free country.
It actually is kind of funny when you think about it. You can use a character like say, Bart Simpson, in any context you want, just so long as you are actively making fun of that specific character. If you use him in a way that is not meant to criticize the character or ridicule him, you are not protected unless you have permission from the copyright holder of that character. This is the law as it pertains to fictional people like cartoon characters. You can use them however you like, but only if you make fun of them. If you treat them with too much respect, you might get in trouble.
On the other hand, you can do and say whatever you want with the image of the American president. If there is one idea that the US was founded on, it is that criticism is vital and important to living free. More important than lionizing our heroes, which is a practice that is not always protected.
