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Copyright: Is it Fair Use? What What (in the Butt) vs. South Park
October 13, 2011 by Rick Sanders | Category: Blawg, Blog, Is it Fair Use | Tags: #isitfairuse?, copyright, fair use, multiple copyrights, music
Welcome to Our Second Episode of “Is it Fair Use?”
This opinion by Judge J.D. Stadtmueller in Brownmark Films, LLC v. Comedy Partners is pretty close to priceless, dealing, as it does, with South Park’s send-up of the notorious “What What (in the Butt)” viral video sensation. Here’s how Judge Stadtmueller introduces the issues and the parties:
Federal lawsuits seldom touch on such riveting subjects and regard so many colorful parties as the present matter. The plaintiff, Brownmark Films, LLC (“Brownmark”), is the purported co-owner of a copyright in a music video entitled “What What (In the Butt)” (“WWITB”), a nearly four minute ditty regarding the derrière of the singer of the underlying work. The music video begins with an array of bizarre imagery – from a burning cross to a floating pink zeppelin – and only gets stranger from there. The heart of the video features an adult African American male ensconced in a bright red, half-buttoned, silk shirt, dancing, grinning creepily at the camera, and repeatedly singing the same cryptic phrases: “I said, what what, in the butt” and “you want to do it in my butt, in my butt.” Meanwhile, the defendants are the entities involved
