European Court Tries To Define ‘Parody’

In 2001, the European Union said a work used for “the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche” may be excepted from certain copyright rules, and in a recent case the European Court of Justice was called upon to define exactly what constituted a “parody.” The case concerned an extremist political party in Belgium that altered an original painting to portray a racist message. While the altered artwork appears to fall into the Court’s definition – “The only, and essential, characteristics of parody are, on the one hand, to evoke an existing work while being noticeably different from it and, on the other, to constitute an expression of humour or mockery,” and, “A parody need not display an original character of its own, other than that of displaying noticeable differences with respect to the original work parodied” – the “discriminatory” message the parody conveys seemingly casts doubt on the case.