The part of this piece that is important is the exploration of “substantiality”, what exactly it means and how it is used in the courts in regards to copyright infringement.  The author explains that there are multiple connotations that “substantiality” takes on in court.  The first connotation of substantiality as a “criterion of infringement involves the ‘ordinary observer’ test.”  Under this test it must “spontaneously and immediately” appear to the average person that the newly created work used or was based on the original.  This test is rough for obvious reasons.  Also, it would be almost impossible to ask the “average person” to tell right away the difference between material that is appropriated and that which is simply similar to the original.  The second connotation involves economics and has no relation to my thesis. The third connotation is almost the opposite of the first and is based on “literary analysis or classification,” or in other words an ‘expert opinion.’  This connotation is helpful in making ‘substantiality’ qualitative rather than quantitative, but not so helpful in that it often leads the court into “abstract literary speculations unrelated to the ends of the copyright law.”  The final connotation is that of ‘substantiality’ as a quantitative test, though this connotation is rejected.  The paper then goes on to show how these connotations of substantiality relate directly to parodies through examples.

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While much of this document is useful for my thesis in a peripheral sense, the section of most interest discusses parody.  It defines parody as something that is not just humorous, but critical.  It goes on to explain that “specifically, it is parody's criticism of the expression of the original that makes parody eligible for protection as fair use.”  Important to note is that satire and parody are not interchangeable, and the document offers the court case of Rogers v. Koons as an example of a time when the court failed to make this distinction and it changed the outcome of the case. This example shows how important it is to make such a distinction.

This document will be helpful for my thesis in defining my play as a parody.  First of all it explains how important it is to formulate a clear definition.  Furthermore it provides the tools necessary to make that distinction.  It clearly defines exactly what a parody is, and goes on to make the specific distinction between parody and satire, something I can model my argument off of.  The document also offers an example of defining a parody based on the four points of the fair use test which can also be helpful in defining my play as a parody that is protected by fair use.

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In this article, Weird Al offers some advice for successful parodying.  He speaks of 1) good writing that can sustain a gag, 2) humor that endures, even to those who don’t know the original work, and 3) video details that mimic the original well.

Although he focuses on songs and videos, the tips can easily be extrapolated to forming a parody in the form of a play.  I attempted to use these tips while creating my parody of Hotel California, though since I am an amateur I was clearly nowhere near as successful as he.  I feel that tips from Weird Al can be important as he is mostly a successful parody creator in that he evades copyright issues on a large scale (though not all the time, of course).  In other words, these are skills that can be used to create a good parody that is most likely not a copyright infringement.

This is another court case focusing on parodies as they fit under fair use.  Air Pirates was sued by Walt Disney Productions for creating "a rather bawdy depiction of the Disney characters as active members of a free thinking, promiscuous, drug ingesting counterculture."  Walt Disney Productions won.  One of the points that added heavily to the decision was that “the defendants here could have expressed their theme without copying Disney's protected expression.”  The importance of this point is further discussed in the following paragraph.

The aspect of this case that is most important to focus on is the actual subject of the parody.  In other words, this case highlighted the importance of clarifying whether or not the newly created work actually parodied the original, or used the original to parody something else.  This could be used to argue that my work is a parody that fits under fair use definition.  Since the lyrics to Hotel California are used in my play Hotel Bermuda to create a parody of the song Hotel California rather than just to use the song as a medium for creating something funny parodying something else, it would be considered a ‘fair use’ parody. 

In Fisher v. Dees, Rick Dees is sued for using portions of Marvin Fisher and Jack Segal’s song “When Sunny Gets Blue” in his song “When Sonny Sniffs Glue.” It is upheld that Dees’ version is a parody which is defendable under Fair Use.  In arguing this case it was noted that the labeling of a work as a ‘parody’ does not single-handedly defend it and that it “must be considered individually, in light of the statutory factors, reason, experience, and, of course, the general principles developed in past cases.”  The main arguments against Dees in this case included the subject of the parody, the propriety of Dees’ conduct, the purpose and character of the use, the economic effect of the use and the amount and substantiality of the taking.  All of the previous arguments were rejected with sufficient reasoning and the court decided Dees’ song “is a parody deserving of fair-use protection as a matter of law.”

This is relevant to my thesis in determining whether or not my work is a parody that falls under Fair Use.  The arguments used in Fisher v. Dees can be applied to my work to help in the decision.  Fisher v. Dees is most often cited as an example of a case where the economic issue was important, specifically in respect to whether or not the newly created work “fulfills the demand for the original.”  It presents this as one of the more important factors involved with regards to parodies.  Using this argument would support a claim that my work is a parody that is protected by fair use as my work (a play) does not “fulfill the demand for the original (a song).”