Yesterday I watched Date Movie on DVD. While the movie itself sucked, there was one interesting Commentary track featuring two L.A. critics who basically spent the whole film explaining why they gave the movie bad reviews. (Quite funny actually, and something I’ve never seen on a DVD before 
)
Anywho - whenever they got to a scene parodiyng (sp?) another movie, for example Meet the Fockers, they didn’t name the movie Date Movie parodied. They kept saying things like - “well this scene is a parody of a well known movie that was released last year, but we can’t name it for legal reasons.” Why on earth not? Is it not allowed to actually name the movies you parody? I couldnt understand that - yet at the same time they had no problems explaining excactly what movies for instance Airplane and Hot Shots parodied.
So if you’re still with me after that rambling, incoherent question - why couldnt they just say what movies Date Movie parodied? It was bleedingly obvious, so I didnt loose any context but it seemed a rather silly rule.
(And no, this is not a life or death question, just got me curious is all )
I do not know the specific answer to this question, but I do know these things that may offer insight.
[ul]
[li]Titles of songs, books, movies, etc., cannot be copyrighted.[/li]
[li]But they can be trademarked.[/li]
[li]And a trademark holder has certain controls over how that trademark can be used, although I don’t know if that applies in this specific case. IANAL.[/li][/ul]
It has nothing to do with copyright or trademark, and everything to do with overzealous lawyers terrified about libel charges. The lawyers are worried that if the original movie were named and terrible things said about it, another set of lawyers would sue. That’s why you see the “the opinins expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Big Company” disclaimer on everything.
Now, critics have protection for their opinions and the chances of any lawsuits are infinitesimal. Possibly the whole “not naming the movie for legal reasons” business was a running joke, in keeping with having critics do the commentary in the first place.
Doesn’t matter. Lawyers are paid to think differently from the rest of us. They make decisions that we can’t understand, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes strictly for CYA reasons.
From what you’ve described, there is no reason they couldn’t identify the movies in question. Whether the parody infringes the copyright of another movie depends on whether it is substantially similar, which doesn’t take into account whether it is named anywhere. Whether the parody is a fair use mostly doesn’t take this into acocunt; to the extent it does, it counts against a finding of fair use if the author doesn’t acknowledge the copying. Also a copyright lawsuit requires proff of actual copying. What a critic says about the source of the parody is irrelevant to that issue. I suppose if the author said, “this isn’t a parody, I’ve never seen that movie,” and could prove it, he might win a copyright infringement lawsuit. But a refusal to name the parodied work, even if it came from the author of the parody, gets him nowhere.
I think that’s it. Kinda like *Trailer Park Boys * blurring every product name.
Ah, didnt even think of the joke explanation. Upon reading your answers that seems to be the most likely explanation yes…
Cheers for putting a wandering mind to rest