Viral?

Sweetie said:

So you're saying, I could take 98-99% of Jurassic park, alter 1 to 2% of it, using that 1-2% to ridicule the movie (maybe we could put a laugh track down and tell a dinosaur joke or two!) and release it in cinemas and I'd be home free using the parody fair use? That's about what this video did.

Maybe you're right, but I don't see argument holding water in court. Who knows?

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Uhhh legally I guess you could. But it'll depend on what Judge you get.. because you'd be the first case of such a situation. The result of that case (if you even had the money to push it up the chain) could ratify exact percentage of a film one could pull from directly to use for a parody.

Also yes, you will most likely want to redo the soundtrack, as that's a separate copyright.

Fair Use is a straight forward law that people have a hard time accepting. Especially the creators of the original works.

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Here's another fun example of Fair Use.

If I had an assignment to share my inspirations and it was graded (both grade school and uni), I would legally be allowed to use video and music from anywhere and just create a montage and post it online.

Sure, montages aren't really that popular, but they are a very common thing people get YouTube strikes for and DMCA notices. Educational Fair Use is a way around that... the times it's actually usable is small though be most assignments don't ask such things haha.

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On another note... Have you seen an amateur level parody like that in a cinema before?... Movies by the Scary Movie dudes are the only parodies I've seen in theatres... and they completely recreate the works and mash a bunch together, a method that's sure to get a better payoff then your mentioned idea.

Have you seen an amateur level parody like that in a cinema before?

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Oh hell no. It was the absurdity of my example. I guess the law makes little sense.

Makes me wonder what these two were thinking on their interpretation of Fair Use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skuiHHAzeas

Fair use is nice. I made a sequel continuing the story from interview with the vampire thanks to fair use.

Sweetie said:

Oh hell no. It was the absurdity of my example. I guess the law makes little sense.

Makes me wonder what these two were thinking on their interpretation of Fair Use.

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I watched all 7 minutes... Yea they are pretty right. Except they don't mention that parody is fair use, perhaps because they seem to be fixated on talking about documentary.

But yes, they give the definition of Fair Use. However, Fair Use has changed a LOT since it was initially started. Now we have Educational Fair Use and Parody Fair Use (and others).

And the general basis stays the same but stated in a more understandable way. In the legal outlook of it, you are still commenting on someone's work if you make a parody of it.

You may be like Nice Peter (and the rest of Key of Awesome) and fixate on how absurd a single theme in a song is. Their parodies are their commentary on the original piece.

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If you're not making a comment about that EXACT piece of work, then you're infringing. sfoster, I haven't seen your sequel to Interview with a Vampire (did you post it yet? I was reading the thread), but from my initial thoughts, you are most likely not within Fair Use as you are not making a comment about the original work, but continuing it.

However, it's not something I'd worry about. Even if you're not protected by Fair Use, the work has to get noticed enough for it to even land on their lawyer's desks. And they can NEVER bring a lawsuit to the table unless you deny the DMCA or they can prove you hurt their market.

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I'm saying this safely because I do have an entertainment lawyer and have asked these exact questions. I'm shooting a parody this month and wanted to know exactly how to use Fair Use.

Haven't posted Vampire yet.. Just need to pull the trigger and send it to my composer.
I probably won't put much time into color grading, it's just a stupid parody but has some funny parts.

Good to know. Thanks for sharing.

sfoster said:

Haven't posted Vampire yet.. Just need to pull the trigger and send it to my composer.
I probably won't put much time into color grading, it's just a stupid parody but has some funny parts.

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Are you still doing the mafia-like mini-series? I got so caught up in school work (god I didn't know the kind of extreme hours I'd be putting in at Full Sail) that I never got around to coloring your first episode

I've felt bad about that forever. I still plan to do it if you're going to continue it though.

SkyCopeland said:

Are you still doing the mafia-like mini-series? I got so caught up in school work (god I didn't know the kind of extreme hours I'd be putting in at Full Sail) that I never got around to coloring your first episode

I've felt bad about that forever. I still plan to do it if you're going to continue it though.

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I forgot about that coloring
I did get it rescored with original music!

Yeah been filming over the last couple of months still but it's a big project at 45 pages and being able to shoot less than once a week. I didn't realize it would take so long when I wrote it... but 45 pages is half a feature film.