Case Study Of Campbell V. Acuff-Rose Music

715 Words2 Pages

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. Brief

By: Mehul Gupta

Heading:
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. ✓
Supreme Court of the United States ✓
March 7, 1994 ✓
Appears on Page 569, and is 32 pages long ✓

Statement of Facts:

Roy Orbison is the original content creator of “Oh, Pretty Woman, and 2 Live Crew is the group that parodied the song 25 years later. ✓
Roy Orbison's song “Oh Pretty Woman” written in 1965 was copyrighted and parodied for commercial value by 2 live crew. After initially requesting licensing right and rejected, 2 lives crew proceeded anyways to make the song with the intention to satirize it. After the song was finally released they still gave credit to Orbison and the authors/publishers, but Acuff-Rose Music not thrilled …show more content…

The supreme court declared that the new song was permissible as it fulfilled the requirements of being a parody as it not only imitated the original but it also provided critical comedic commentary on it as well.
The result of the first question is so critical that it affects the rest of the results. Although 2 live crew’s song was for commercial purposes because it was distinct enough and was a parody it was permissible despite making money, This was the main question at hand.
The Supreme court ruled that the new song didn’t diminish the market value of the original as it was based on a genre which caters to a distinct audience.
The answer of this goes hand-in-hand with the first question as this is a parody with substantial differences from Orbison’s it is in the …show more content…

Did the court decide in favor of the plaintiff or the defendant? What remedy, if any, did the court grant? If it is an appellate court opinion, did the court affirm the lower court's decision, reverse it in whole or in part, or remand the case for additional proceedings?


The court of appeals was in favor of 2 live crew by overturning the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee evaluation they clarified that the parody was actually protected by the copyright act of 1976. In remanding and reversing the lower court's initial decision they said that yes the commercial parody is protected by fair use.


The Judges decided they wanted they didn't want to hinder anyone’s ability to be creative since that was the intention of the precedent. In turn, they determined that this would require a case-by-case analysis, and in order for them to determine if it fit the test for the fair use they had to look at a myriad of factors.

First, they looked at whether or not this added something new to the original content. They asked whether this added enough new content, which they determined it did. This parody has transformative value, because of it [comedically] comments on the original work and doesn’t use the original for the sake of gaining attention, finally, it imitates the original to get a point

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