It is South by Southwest® here in Austin this week. While most of the students are away, the town is full of music, films and interactive events. In searching for something with a legal angle that I could write about, I came across a potential legal dispute involving the movie “MacGruber” of SNL fame, which premieres tonight at the Paramount. The dispute stems from a cease and desist letter sent by the attorneys of the creator of the original MacGyver TV series. Apparently, MacGyver is also being made into a movie. The letter did not stop the premier, but raises the issue of copyright infringement.
Essentially, before a suit for infringement can be brought in federal court, the work must be registered at the Copyright Office. The courts will examine whether the alleged infringing work is “substantially similar” to the original work, and if the look and feel, among other things, of the original work was improperly copied. Although it is unlikely that anyone would think that MacGruber was created independently, it was clearly based on the MacGyver character, there is an exception to infringement called “fair use.” One type of fair use is parody. A parody is the copying of a work in a satirical and humorous manner. I don’t think anyone will claim that MacGruber is anything but a copying of MacGyver in a satirical and humorous manner, but not all parodies are automatically fair use.
The most prominent case involving this issue is Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music which was decided by the Supreme Court in 1994. Essentially, 2LiveCrew recorded a parody of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman,” and like the creator of MacGyver, the owner of the Pretty Woman copyright felt that the parody was an infringement. Although the lower court held that the commercial nature of the 2Live Crew version of the song automatically excluded it from fair use, the Supreme Court ruled that because the work was so transformative (different from the original), the work would not impact the commercial value of the original work as they operated in completely different markets (one of the factors in fair use).
What does this mean for MacGruber? I would predict that a court would find MacGruber to be transformative parody and serving a different market than MacGyver and thus a fair use. I wish them a successful premiere.
I would agree that infringement is not applicable for the reason that “SNL” imitates only to make fun of people, groups, or events; parody purposes. In this case, parody is an exception to infringement.
A suit for infringement in court could only be won if the plaintiff’s work was breached by the defendant, both products, services, or designs were similar, or if the reproduction was not a coincidence.
I believe that this is a parody. This has been done with such films as scream, 300, and many more. If they were going to sue on such grounds as infringement, then they shoud’ve tried that before with the skits SNL ran. There is no ground for suit in my opinion.
I do not think it can be considered infringement. The movies and concept is a parody or farse of MacGuyver. MacGruber is a comical revision of the concepts that made MacGuyver great. It however is in no way MacGuyver. MacGruber imitates or emulates MacGuyver, but does not actually copy it.
“SNL” is also notorious for sketches that make fun of real movies or series. The fact that they would do so with MacGuyver should come as no surprise to anyone and should be met with as little force as any other projects they have done.
I would say this parody would be an exception.
That is to say I agree with Adrian comment.
Due to the fact that SNL bases almost all skits on parody and as stated above in the case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, “the work would not impact the commercial value of the original work as they operated in completely different markets”, I agree that MacGruber is a transformative parody. I don’t believe there is any copyright infringement here.
I think this is obviously a clear-cut case of a parody. Not to beat a dead horse, but as mentioned above, SNL makes most of their money off of making fun of pop culture. They haven’t encountered any problems with this revenue model in the past so I don’t understand why it is now a huge issue. Besides, most MacGyver fans probably don’t watch SNL anyway.
I don’t think this case will go very far. Imitation is not nessecarily copying. It is obviously a transformative parody, as the revenue from this film Macgruber, should not affect the new film coming out.
I don’t normally post to blogs but I enjoyed this post so keep up the good work. -cheers-
Although I am not a fan of parodies or movies like
“Scary movie” or “Disaster movie” I truly don’t believe any type of parody should be considered infringement, only because their main purpose is to poke fun of the originals, not copy.
I’m leaning towards parody on this one. This is close only because the original copyright holders intend to make a movie out of it; the impact of this parody before the MacGuyver movie could affect its success.
I do think it qualifies as a transformative parody since it is a completely different genre of movie. If anything I think the creators of MacGyver should be honored at the fact that it can be made into parody understood by the masses due to its large popularity.
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