Herbatab Case Summary

1781 Words4 Pages

Question Presented
Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1976 to protect individuals and organizations under the fair use doctrine from being held liable for copyright infringement. A natural health organization with a stated goal of protecting consumers from destructive biochemical medication has produced a parodic advertisement that is critical of a rival pharmaceutical company. Under the fair use doctrine does the Copyright Act of 1976 protect health companies from producing parodic advertisements that criticize the negative effects of a pharmaceutical brand’s product?
ARGUMENT

I. Helping Eradicate Risky Biochemicals’ advertisement for its product HerbaTab is protected under the fair use doctrine and 17 U.S.C. § 107 because the advertisement is an educational parody criticizing Ackman Pharmaceuticals’ biochemical product Ambizac.

The United States Constitution …show more content…

Furthermore, HERB intended to criticize and educate the public about the harmful biochemical that Ackman was selling. As Angela Burr stated in an article about the two different campaigns, “People should know about the adverse effects of Ambizac . . . [w]e feel it is our duty to make the public aware of this.” R. at 24. HERB is a health organization with a stated goal of educating the public about the benefits of natural medicines. Id. at 27. By employing Congressional lobbyists and investing in companies that produce “health-related products,” HERB is dedicated to eradicating risky biochemical medications. Id. With this proven track record, determining the motivating factor behind HERB’s advertisement is not difficult. As Burr stated, “It’s really a brilliant campaign. [HERB’s] informed the public of the evils of chemically produced medicine with humor.” Id. at 24. HERB, following its corporate mantra, produced the HerbaTab advertisements to make the public aware of the shortcomings of

Open Document