Generally, absent some contractual arrangement or license to use someone else’s property, doesn’t having the right to exercise control over and profit from something indicate that the person with the right to control and profit from the property owns it? Are you suggesting that people rent their personal appearances?
No. I have property rights over my car. Someone may not take my car out for a drive on the street as a prank and use as a court defense that they were parodying my driving habits.
I do not have property rights over my image, in the context of this thread’s discussion. Someone may take my image out for a spin around town and use for a court defense that they were parodying my image.
I’m well aware that I cannot open the Carol Burnett School of Comedy. But that’s not the type of image appropriation we’re discussing in this thread, and that’s not the context in which I was saying that a person’s image is not their personal property.
Daniel
Carol Burnett made much of her career by parodying other personalities. This included the Queen of England in which Carol copied her look, hairstyle, clothing, laugh, royal music, etc.
Carol Burnett is being a hypocrite in suing Family Guy for the same type of parody she used to do. No one is going to reasonably think the episode of Family Guy was brought to us by the Carol Burnett Co. So it is parody, and I hope her case is quickly thrown out. Being parodied is the price to be paid for courting the public spotlight.
The only thing she has done is ensured that thousands of people who would have never seen this clip, will now search it out on You Tube.
I’m on Carol Burnett’s side (not that I think she’ll win her suit). *Family Guy *didn’t merely parody the comedienne; they made a crude joke about her relationship with her father. If that’s what got her hackles up, I’m behind her 100%. When someone goes after your family, all bets are off.
Or maybe it bugged her that they said “Carol Burnett works part-time as a janitor” in a porn shop. Not the character, Carol Burnett. I’m not saying it has any legal merit, but you’d understand if it pissed her off.
Could I also note that the joke doesn’t make sense? I mean, I know what they’re saying, but as written it doesn’t really add up.
“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; unless your family is insulted, because then all bets are off.”
I don’t recall that wording exactly.
Sure, I can see why she’s pissed. But obnoxious speech is generally protected by the first amendment; indeed, it’s generally the only kind of speech that needs protection. A governing principle that only protected speech that didn’t bother anybody wouldn’t be a remarkable principle at all.
Daniel
I was concerned with Carol Burnett’s motivation. Is she a famous comic with a low tolerance for jokes at her expense or one with a low tolerance for smutty humor involving her father? I think it’s the latter. As I said, I don’t think Burnett will win her lawsuit – for the very reason you give, Left Hand of Dorkness. Let me put my stance another way: I am for her suing Family Guy, but I am against her winning. I don’t think she will. I don’t think she should. I also don’t think she needs to win to make her point.
For me, I’m against even her suing. The correct response to obnoxious speech isn’t to misuse the courts as a tool of intimidation or vengeance: it’s to respond with speech, or with snubbing. I wouldn’t mind Burnett being stuck with court fees, in an effort to discourage this kind of thing.
Daniel
What is her point? That she hates free speech?
Maybe that she finds hateful, humiliating parodies at her expense distasteful. BTW, I’m not saying she will or should win (or that she’s not being overly sensitive).
Our judicial system is not intended to be used frivolously to “make points”. I would hope that she would face repercussions if it could be proven that this is what she is doing.
Odd. When Harley-Davidson tried to trademark the sound of their engine, the USPTO said, in effect, “sounds cannot be trademarked.”
What I found to be the most interesting part was this:
I won’t argue the (probably dubious) merits of her case, but it sounds like the main reason she’s suing is because the FG crew (according to her) acted in a retaliatory manner to her. It wasn’t enough that she wouldn’t give them the rights–they had to respond by digging the knife deeper as payback. I suspect that’s what she really objected to. It’s also the point that might make the difference, if sentiment plays any part in the proceedings.
Without doing the research, I’d put a hefty bet on the Tarzan Yell being trademarked as a melody. The Harley-Davidson engine noise is just, well, noise. The NBC Chimes are trademarked.
According to Wikipedia’s article on Harley-Davidson, the reason the Harley trademark was thrown out is because other motorcycle companies stated their products make a similar noise. It is possible to trademark a sound in the United States- the USPTO even has a category for “situations where there is no drawing possible, such as sound.” The first trademarked sound was the NBC chimes, filed in 1950. Over the years, a handful of familiar sounds have been trademarked, including the MGM lion’s roar, the 20th Century Fox fanfare, the THX noise, the Intel jingle, the sounds of the TiVo, and Homer Simpson’s “D’oh!,” to name a few.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with her motivation or not, but Carol Burnett’s eartug was actually a hello to her (maternal) grandmother rather than her mother as Family Guy suggested. The reason this might be relevant is because she was raised by her grandmother, not her parents, and had a miserable childhood. Her parents were both alcoholics who essentially abandoned her to her grandmother (about whom, don’t think “little old grey haired lady”; Grandma was a multi-married, probably bipolar, larger than life pill-popping Christian Scientist [yep, I know the contradiction there] who was only about 39 when Carol was born and who Carol adored but feared). Later Carol’s mother had another daughter out of wedlock and left her to be reared from infancy by Carol and her grandmother, who were usually penniless, especially after Grandma decided to move to Hollywood. (Carol tells stories of “going shopping”- stealing toilet paper from every public restroom they came to, waiting to see when a person would leave a tip and leave their chair in a diner and then running up to finish what they’d left and grab the tip, etc.).
Her father she completely lost touch with and learned from a relative that he had literally died on the street during a drunken spree; her mother also died before Carol was famous due to alcohol related causes.
In any case, I think that if Family Guy (a show I’ll admit I’ve laughed at many times) had not mentioned her parents she may not have sued. I do think she’s overreacting and hope she drops the suit, but I think she probably feels that they intentionally went after an extremely painful section of her past in order to “pay her back” for not giving permission to reference her show and music. (After all- I’ve never been in show business or even to Hollywood and I know the above about her childhood from her memoirs and interviews, so Seth M. could most certainly have learned it to be vindictive.)
I can’t imagine her winning more than the most token of settlements (and that for possible trademark infringement) as there was no demonstrable harm done. But Burnett, who is loaded and doesn’t need the money (she donated her Enquirer proceeds to charity, owns homes in New Mexico, Beverly Hills, Hawaii and NYC, and has given millions to drug and alcohol centers due to the addictions of her grandmother, her parents and her [now deceased from cancer] daughter), is obviously doing this for personal reasons.
Gee.
Remember all those parodies that Carol did on her show?
Did she get permission to do the Gone with the Wind sketch?
Zebra, that point was raised earlier in this thread. As others have pointed out, Ms. Burnett is apparently not basing her objection – valid or otherwise – merely on the grounds that FG chose to parody her work.
There is the chance that it wasn’t her who is suing them, but rather her people.
It reminds me of when Simon (American Idol) was throwing a fit about Kelly Clarkson not letting the contestents use one of her songs. After ranting about it for a while, he mentioned that it’s not neccisarily her fault. Hell, she might not even know that she was asked about it. Most likely, her people where asked if the song could be used, and her people said no.
As for people thinking she was okay with this or that she is somehow affiliated with the show becuase of it. I think that’s more of a Hollywood thing. I don’t know about everyone else, but when I see a parody on a show, or someone elses ‘thing’ being done on another show, I don’t automatically think about the person being asked and the show being granted persmission and legal paperwork and all that. I watch the bit and move on, or course to people in business, I’m sure it does come to mind much faster.