Business Law- Copyright Law. (Answer IRAC format ) Facts: Acuff-Rose filed suit
ID: 357550 • Letter: B
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Business Law- Copyright Law. (Answer IRAC format ) Facts: Acuff-Rose filed suit against the members of a rap group, 2 Live Crew and their record company, claiming that 2 Live Crew’s song “Pretty Woman” infringed Acuff-Rose’s copyright in Roy Orbison’s song “Oh Pretty Woman.” The District Court granted summary judgment for 2 Live Crew holding that the song was a parody and thus a fair use of the copyrighted work. Acuff-Rose appealed and the appellate court reversed, holding that because the 2 Live Crew song was used for a commercial purpose, it is presumptively unfair, and because Campbell used so much of the original work in its work, the group had taken too much of copyrighted work. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. Question: Is the parody a fair use of the original work? (Answer in IRAC format ) Business Law- Copyright Law. (Answer IRAC format ) Facts: Acuff-Rose filed suit against the members of a rap group, 2 Live Crew and their record company, claiming that 2 Live Crew’s song “Pretty Woman” infringed Acuff-Rose’s copyright in Roy Orbison’s song “Oh Pretty Woman.” The District Court granted summary judgment for 2 Live Crew holding that the song was a parody and thus a fair use of the copyrighted work. Acuff-Rose appealed and the appellate court reversed, holding that because the 2 Live Crew song was used for a commercial purpose, it is presumptively unfair, and because Campbell used so much of the original work in its work, the group had taken too much of copyrighted work. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. Question: Is the parody a fair use of the original work? (Answer in IRAC format ) Business Law- Copyright Law. (Answer IRAC format ) Facts: Acuff-Rose filed suit against the members of a rap group, 2 Live Crew and their record company, claiming that 2 Live Crew’s song “Pretty Woman” infringed Acuff-Rose’s copyright in Roy Orbison’s song “Oh Pretty Woman.” The District Court granted summary judgment for 2 Live Crew holding that the song was a parody and thus a fair use of the copyrighted work. Acuff-Rose appealed and the appellate court reversed, holding that because the 2 Live Crew song was used for a commercial purpose, it is presumptively unfair, and because Campbell used so much of the original work in its work, the group had taken too much of copyrighted work. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. Question: Is the parody a fair use of the original work? (Answer in IRAC format )Explanation / Answer
Issue: Whether parody can be qualified as a fair use of the original work.
Rule: According to Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U. S. C. § 107, fair use is considered as the limitations of exclusive rights provided by the Copyright Act to an individual. According to this law, reproduction of a copyrighted material is allowed for certain purposes including teaching, research, criticism, news etc.
In order to determine whether the use of copyrighted material would be considered as fair or not the following factors need to be considered:
Application: In the given case, 2 Live Crew has prepared a parody of Acuff Rose’s original song “Oh Pretty Woman”. It was found by the appellate court that the song was used by 2 Live Crew for commercial purpose and too much of original work was taken from the copyrighted song.
Conclusion: Although it is true that the song was used for commercial purpose by the 2 Live Crew and they have taken huge proportion of the original content. But, the parody was developed for a completely different purpose and potential market. It did not have any substantial harm on the potential market of the original song. Besides, the work was used in a transformative manner for commenting and criticizing the copyrighted song. Hence, it is concluded that in the given case, parody would be considered as a fair use of original work.
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