Has any court ever even found that a re-drawn likeness of a cartoon character was a copyright infringement?
It could still be a trademark infringement, of course, but again, that hasn’t changed.
Dunno, but I’m reminded of an episode of The Simpsons where the copyright and trademark police demolish Maggie’s daycare center for having unlicensed paintings on the walls.
Often something like this won’t even reach trial. Here is an example of the studio behind Peppa Pig suing a Vietnamese company who makes the Youtube cartoon Wolfoo. It is not simply drawing new Peppa Pig cartoons, but claims that the Wolfoo characters are done in Peppa Pig’s style.
I’m sure putting up your own drawings of Peppa Pig, or any other cartoon character, on Etsy or similar would get you cease and desisted or DMCAed pretty quickly.
Based on real events. The smashing and such is comic hyperbole. The real daycare centers had to paint over the Disney characters. Universal took advantage of this, and made a big deal of letting them use Hanna-Barbara characters.
OTOH, you’re probably in the clear if you entertain your dinner companion with the Charlie Chaplin “fork dance.”
Right, I know that Disney or other corporations can enforce trademark infringements for things like that (that daycare case is exactly the sort of thing that trademark protection is meant for), and I know that big companies can bully the little guy into complying with what they want even if the law isn’t strictly on their side. But I’m asking about what courts have found with regards to copyright. Even aside from the parody exemption, I think that South Park was in the clear with that scene.
Comedy Central just re-ran South Park, Season 12, Episode 3, “Major Boobage”.
A large aspect of the show is a parody of the 1981 Film Heavy Metal. Now, I know that satire is protected. But the episode used several songs from the movie, un-altered, and un-parodied. Did they have to get permission from Don Felder and Sammy Hagar?
Short portions of recordings are considered fair use if used for commentary or criticism. South Park was definitely making commentary on that genre. Further, there was no infringement on the marketability of the recording since it is only a sample. In fact, airing the short samples probably increased sales of those songs.
They probably did, which would be a routine thing to do for a show at a major production company. They have people whose job is to take care of that kind of thing. Heavy Metal would not have had an exclusive right to use those songs, so parody of the movie, and use of complete songs also used in the movie would be two different things.
If you recall, a VHS release of Heavy Metal was delayed by years because they had to renegotiate rights to the music. That is expensive, and someone would have to pay for it with no guarantee of a return from the VHS sales of a genre adult cartoon.