# Movie Fair Use usage for parody - Can you really use the entire film without paying? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 4, 2019, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025 "2019-04-04T07:58:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/1 "2019-04-04T07:58:33Z")
Okay this is all stuff I heard in a podcast recently but the person who said it actually was the producer on several shows for CBS so I assume what he said was true albeit with maybe a bit of exaggeration. Basically at some point in the mid-00’s he pitched a show that was basically Mystery Science Theater 3000 (For those who don’t know, it was a show where they would take bad movies and play them in almost their entirety and put an audio commentary track on topic where they made fun of the movie) except even cheaper. Instead of getting the movie rights, they would just take the entire film, cut it down to about an hour timeslot (so about 40 minutes) and replace the entire audiotrack with them doing funny voices over it, basically a gag dub. He claimed that if you got rid of the original audio but also cut out a little over 50% of the original source you could basically do it without paying for the rights for the films and call it fair use under parody. CBS apparently was interested in it but turned him down since they thought people talking over movies was no longer in vogue. They apparently did get to the step of talking to their lawyers to see if they could get away with it and they gave them the go-ahead. He also claimed you could do the same thing but in reverse, take the full audio of something but then have puppets or stick figures act it out as the visual component and also not have to pay licensing fees. So it this guy telling the truth or just another product of Lying Hollywood? ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/2 "2019-04-04T14:27:02Z")
With parody, it’s less about how much you use and more about how much new commentary on the original you add. If the puppets or stick figures are commenting on the script, themes, and value of the original, then it’s likely to be considered parody. If they’re commenting mostly on unrelated things, then it may not be an actual parody. Actual parodies are considered transformative–they take something old and turn it into something new–so without that transformation, the piece isn’t actually a parody, and regular Fair Use guidelines would apply. But with that transformation, they can essentially use all they want. As with most things in IP law, it’ll be up to a court to decide whether they met the requirements for a parody and whether Fair Use was violated. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/3 "2019-04-04T14:52:28Z")
Fair use is not that simple. It seems to me very unlikely that parody fair use will cover using the majority of a film just with the audio track replaced. But there’s a much deeper analysis to be done. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/4 "2019-04-04T15:05:23Z")
I’ve never seen it, but isn’t that what Woody Allen did with “What’s Up Tiger Lily” – overdubbed an entire Japanese gangster movie? ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/5 "2019-04-04T15:08:11Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Instead of getting the movie rights, they would just take the entire film, cut it down to about an hour timeslot (so about 40 minutes) and replace the entire audiotrack with them doing funny voices over it, basically a gag dub. He claimed that if you got rid of the original audio but also cut out a little over 50% of the original source you could basically do it without paying for the rights for the films and call it fair use under parody. Those claims are at odds with these: > [@](#): > > Hodgson: Film distributors would do this trick where they’d license you several movies. Half of them might be movies you’d heard of, and half were the movies we actually wanted, the B movies. We didn’t want the cocaine—we wanted the baby laxative they put in the cocaine. > > … > > Mallon: A lot of these films were owned by, say, fertilizer salesmen. They were all characters, and part of the challenge of the show was dealing with them. > > Bell: There were crazy chains of ownership for all of these films. Sometimes people died and left the movie to their grandson. We had to track them down, and some people were reluctant, because they said, “What do you want to do with this movie?” They often didn’t know how to price these things, and we were trying to buy this stuff by the pound. We had a lot to buy, and we didn’t have a lot of money. > > Steven Paul Mark (Comedy Central executive and lawyer, 1991–1996): The biggest legal challenge was clearance. Mystery Science Theater 3000 used feature films, and in those days it was a real struggle to get the studios to grant licenses. Some of the bigger movies they wanted never got on, because the studios wanted too big a license. And sometimes, you’d clear a movie and somebody would come out of the woodwork and say, “Oh, no, no, no—that’s our film.” > > Conniff: Once we agreed to do a movie, and once we got the rights to it, we never abandoned it. We were all-in and committed to however bad and however painful it could be. And a lot of time, the pain that the movie gave us would be incorporated into our riffing and our comments. That fit into the basic premise of the show—that Joel and the bots were being subjected to cruel experiments by watching these movies, and making jokes was a way to help them get through it. > **[Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Definitive Oral History of a TV Masterpiece](https://www.wired.com/2014/04/mst3k-oral-history/)** > > With the Netflix reboot here, let's take a look back at what made the original so great. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/6 "2019-04-04T15:20:53Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > I’ve never seen it, but isn’t that what Woody Allen did with “What’s Up Tiger Lily” – overdubbed an entire Japanese gangster movie? He did, but the legal question is whether he got permission first. The idea itself wasn’t new. Putting dialog onto silent movies was used in movie gag shorts in the 1930s. (I just saw one on TMC.) I sorta remember hearing of various television shows doing something similar in the 1950s. But I have no idea whether they just grabbed the films or bought the rights. > [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > Those claims are at odds with these: Two completely different situations. The MST3K crew used entire movies with the original dialog. The CBS proposal was to use small chunks of movies with new dialog. Not at all the same legally. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/7 "2019-04-04T15:45:25Z")
I think that sounds pretty shaky. First of all, half the film is more than enough to be a violation. If it were a five-minute clip, that’s one thing, but far too much of the original is being used. Second, that’s not parody. Parody would be performing a version of the movie on your own, using the plot and characters in an exaggerated way. _Airplane!_, for instance, parodied _Zero Hour!_, even down to the dialog.\* Third, using the entire soundtrack is not fair use. \*Both films were produced by Paramount, and Hollywood studios had a long history of people reusing elements from their own pictures – just look at Looney Tunes. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/8 "2019-04-04T16:35:46Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > … _Airplane!_, for instance, parodied _Zero Hour!_, even down to the dialog.\* … > \*Both films were produced by Paramount, and Hollywood studios had a long history of people reusing elements from their own pictures – just look at Looney Tunes. Also, as I understand it, ZAZ bought the rights to _Zero Hour!_ to be sure they were free to do what they wanted with it. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/9 "2019-04-04T17:16:19Z")
The lesson here is that just because you see someone using an existing work, don’t assume that they didn’t have to clear rights for it. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/10 "2019-04-04T17:57:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The idea itself wasn’t new. Putting dialog onto silent movies was used in movie gag shorts in the 1930s. (I just saw one on TMC.) I sorta remember hearing of various television shows doing something similar in the 1950s… [Fractured Flickers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractured_Flickers), perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/11 "2019-04-04T19:22:09Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > [Fractured Flickers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractured_Flickers), perhaps? That’s 1960s, so there were probably earlier examples, but yeah. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/12 "2019-04-04T20:53:23Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > That’s 1960s, so there were probably earlier examples, but yeah. The films they used were silent era. The usage rights for such films were incredibly cheap. (What else were the studios going to do with them?) Add goofy dialogue, sound effects and Hans Conried. Comedy gold! It might not be clear when such an “enhanced” version would have been produced to some people. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/13 "2019-04-05T03:57:28Z")
Just from listening to Leonard French, a copyright attorney on YouTube, One problem jumps out at me. It would be a commercial work that could function as a replacement for the original. That’s definitely a no-go. There is also no strict amount of the work that makes fair use allowable. And, even then, the guidelines cite 5-10%, not anywhere near 50%. And, anyways, if this was a good idea, why wouldn’t it have been tried in a totally legal manner? CBS and the other stations all have extensive back catalogs of content they own outright. Even if they only have access to TV movies, they could do this–but most are arms of bigger companies. That no one has made such a show suggests it’s not a viable idea. That said, with a little sleuthing, you can watch the entirety of Toy Story and Shrek online in shot for shot remakes with new audio. They’re on YouTube, where you’d expect them to have been shut down if the studios cared. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/14 "2019-04-05T04:13:07Z")
been there done that I don’t know if it was syndicated but in the late 80s nick at nite used to a show called “mad movies” that did exactly that that was done by a so cal comedy group …… The one movie I remember because they reran it so often was the original “D.O.A.” … edit: Heh it was syndicated but reran on nick at nite for about 3 years although it only lasted 1 here it is :[Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Movies_with_the_L.A._Connection) The OP’s guy idea was in no way original …… ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/15 "2019-04-05T16:16:16Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > The films they used were silent era. The usage rights for such films were incredibly cheap. (What else were the studios going to do with them?) Add goofy dialogue, sound effects and Hans Conried. Comedy gold! > > It might not be clear when such an “enhanced” version would have been produced to some people. The problem would have been the same as MST3K had. The silent era consisted of hundreds of tiny studios, winking in and out of existence under dozens of legal shells. Or illegal shells. Most people don’t remember that the film industry moved to California because the Edison Trust [(The Motion Picture Patents Company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Company) had cornered the patents on film stock and cameras. The independents hid in California where the New York and New Jersey courts couldn’t easily find them. The Trust wasn’t busted until 1915. Most of that early, illegal, stuff is lost today, but nobody could afford the time to pay lawyers to track ownership of the rest down. (Of course, the really early films would have moved into the public domain if their copyright was not renewed. That often was not easily determined as I discovered when I put together an anthology.) Even the later films that survived came from obscure companies until the majors slowly consolidated the industry until the expense of making talkies and owning theaters around the country essentially drove everyone else out of business. Copyright’s protections were designed to keep pirates from freely copying an item and keeping the money. The idea that every item of art, including ephemeral silent films, would have value decades later and that a proper updated database of rights ownership was essential was beyond anyone’s comprehension. Today everybody understands that but nobody does anything about it. Progress! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-fair-use-usage-for-parody-can-you-really-use-the-entire-film-without-paying/832025/16 "2019-04-05T17:04:21Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > been there done that I don’t know if it was syndicated but in the late 80s nick at nite used to a show called “mad movies” that did exactly that that was done by a so cal comedy group …… The one movie I remember because they reran it so often was the original “D.O.A.” … > edit: > Heh it was syndicated but reran on nick at nite for about 3 years although it only lasted 1 here it is :[Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Movies_with_the_L.A._Connection) > > The OP’s guy idea was in no way original …… I see that a lot of the films on that list are public domain, and I’d guess that all of them are, so copyright wasn’t an issue and they could do what they wanted.