Mary Donato

So far I am finding lots of information on my project. Unfortunately, I think I will have a bit of trouble narrowing down my subject and keeping it appropriate for the class topic.

My project focuses around the copyright laws of musical parodies, specifically Weird Al Yankovic.

“Fair Use.” Stanford University Libraries (2007): Web.

This article starts by defining fair use then goes into much greater detail about the four
factors of measuring fair use. It also includes information about “fifth” factor. This article is
important to my work because it specifically mentions music cases and provides examples of
the grey area of fair use and disagreements that lead to law suits.

Rich, Lloyd L. “Parody: Fair Use or Copyright Enfringement.” The Law Publishing Center
(1999): Web.

Denver lawyer Lloyd Rich starts be defining what a parody consists of. He then argues for
the rights of those creating the parodies. He uses the Fair Use defense but further
categorizes the definition of Fair Use into four categories: Purpose and Character of Use,
Nature of Copyright Work, Amount of Substantiality of the Portion Used of the Copyrighted
Work, and Effect of Potential Market or Value of the Copyrighted Work.

Verna, Anthony. “’Weird Al’ Yankovic vs. Those Who Don’t Understand.” Trademark,
Copyright, and Entertainment Law Forum (2006): Web.

The author, Anthony Verna, a lawyer from New York, NY, explains specific conflicts “Weird
Al” Yankovic has experienced with some of the artists’ songs he does parodies of. Verna also
mentions the position the record label has in the whole copyright argument. This article is
special because it has quotes from “Weird Al” himself regarding artists like James Blunt and
label companies like Atlantic. U.S. Code Title 17 is the settled law that any parody is covered
under the fair use under the United States Copyright Statute.

As we have discussed in class a multimedia author is a broad term these days. We have discussed the claiming of twitter and facebook wallposts and status updates. We have discussed remixes of videos, slideshows, and music. We also have discussed the transfer of magazines and newspapers to the world of the web. I think Foulcault had a lot of important points about defining authors in his work, "What is an Author". Personally, I do not think just because I write my own facebook statuses this makes me an multimedia author. Foulcault knows it's important about not only what is written but who does the writing. For instance, Stephenie Meyer's tweets are much more accredited then my tweets. But however, if someone where to send a threat to the country of the president via tweet their message would instantly become more important. With all this ever-changing technology more and more people are getting their written word to the masses. It's hard to draw the line between actual authorship and just conversational dialogue. Blog posts are original work that are a bit more substantial then a 180 character tweet. This will continue to be an ongoing battle. I plan on addressing the authorship and legalitites of parodies of music for my semester-long project.