I think I\’m right here: tell me if I\’m not
Sunny thinks that:
But parodies of films and music aren’t allowed under UK copyright law, unless you have explicit permission of the copyright owner. I didn’t know this either until this week.
My response:
That’s because it’s not true.
You can parody anything you like. You just cannot include someone else’s copyright material in your parody.
Thus, for example, you can parody “Yesterday” by Paul McCartney, no problems. Change the key perhaps, make a minor adjustment to the notes (there are well known ways of doing this sort of thing, it’s done all the time by advertisers who want a soundtrack without having to pay royalties) then stick any words you like over it.
Oh, and make sure that you’re not actually using Sir Paul’s voice or playing on it.
At a guess the problem with the above video, quite apart from anything else, is the use of the Olympic rings and then 2012 logo. Whether they’re copyright or trademarks not sure, but they do indeed belong to someone.
Easy enough to get around. Slightly change the colours, the shades, of the rings and you’re not using someone else’s property any more.
This is all well known stuff. Just, apparently, not by the people who created this parody.
There are plenty of parodies of, say, Star Wars, out there done with Lego or Playmobil. No one needs George Lucas’ permission to do that. How do you think Spaceballs got made and shown in the UK if permssion to parody is required? Or Men in Tights, South Park, etc etc?
It’s not parody which you cannot do.