Why Does The Strength Of The Constitution Rely On Parody
The first time I remember hearing much about the 1st Amendment and more importantly The Fair Use Act regarding parody was from my roommate in New York,
Patrick Weathers who had been a best childhood friend and a featured performer for a year on Saturday Night Live in the early eighties. I was doing a pubic relations internship and honing my skills at stand up comedy at night, in my twenties, immortal, and enjoying New York to the fullest. At the time, I never gave it a second thought how this document might affect me.
Years passed and fate took me to live and work in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and finally to my hometown, which I had escaped nearly two decades earlier, to care for my terminally ill Mom. I had come full circle. During my caretaking tenure, I also worked in sales at a local CBS affiliate tv station. I had been a professional writer, mainly for various medias, but my writing flow was blocked for about four years. In the back of my mind, I had a cartoon venture, which was fueled by Gary Larson’s Far Side. The Smithsonian had had a Far Side exhibit which remained in my psyche, and years before The Far Side was ever in the papers, I had a shoebox full of concepts for a single panel offbeat cartoon.
After Mom died, I found myself living with hardships I never imagined would occur. I decided that would not stop me and lived in an abandoned warehouse, slept on the floor, and ate old canned food while I launched my offbeat cartoon. I learned to work the Internet as I was launching the cartoon business. I was fortunate to come upon mentors such as Charles “Sparky” Schulz (Peanuts), Jon McPherson (Close To Home), Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), and Leigh Rubin (Rubes). Though they all were extremely helpful, many of the things Charles Schulz (he asked me to call him “Sparky”), his nickname after his favorite dog, purveyed words and philosophies that stuck with me and seemed to be the most pragmatic. It seemed he had an answer for every obstacle.
With my mentors I was always honest. I let them know I was broke, living by the skin of my teeth, and my artistic skills were lacking. I could surely produce a cartoon on my own, but it would not be at the artistic level I had envisioned. Each mentor suggested I form a team on speculation. I did. Each told me it would take a long long time to ever get noticed. They were correct. Each told me I should send a pile of 25 or so cartoons to the major newspaper syndicates but no matter how good it was, I probably had a better chance of winning the lotto. They all made good points and were correct.
For the first five months or so, I was working with one artist I had found on the Internet. Ironically, he lived in my hometown of Hattiesburg, and had graduated from USM where I had attended. We did manage to sell the rights to 12 cartoons to a large T-shirt maker in San Diego for $10,000 which kept us going awhile, but then Richard (Larson), that was his name Larson, more irony, had to stop and take care of family business. I understood. Most of my friends told me it was time to put it away and go back to work. I was just getting started and had a lot of ideas.
Before I knew it I created another called “Panel Hollywood” and I parodied Hollywood celebs and other notables from politicians to simply well-known characters both living and fictional. I sent copies of each cartoon to them and asked for a review. Of the 200 or so we created, about 20 or so wrote back and all were glowing reviews which we have posted on the reviews wall of our website. This put us on the map.
It was about this time I discovered a type of attorney, very much like ambulance chasers but even worse if you can imagine, that scour the Internet for their client’s name, and call “to settle”. Never mind that it is not an image of their client I had created but a parody, totally protected by the Fair Use Act. But they did call and threatened every now and then. I called several of my mentors who laughed and one said, “Oh, I have about a hundred or more of those letters. I always frame them and have a special wall for them”. He told me to read The Fair Use Act which I did and realized I was in the right, these “telemarketing attorneys” were not only wrong, they were trying to intimidate those who did not know their rights to “settle” and many did. True parody that does not confuse the viewer (ours like SNL is clearly parody does not confuse), is totally protected by the Constitution, which is what I suspected; as, if not, what truly made us that much different than any other country in the world?
In early 2002, something interesting happened. I received an email from Barbara Orbison, widow of musical great Roy. She wanted to use a cartoon we did of Roy for her Christmas cards to send their friends and fans. Of course I agreed. She stayed in touch awhile and told me what a hit it had been and was so grateful as I did not charge for it. She was certainly willing to basically pay whatever I wanted. I did not, of course accept any payment. Roy (Orbison) had brought me so much free listening pleasure (on the radio) over the years, it was only fair.
About four years later, I received a call from a Houston law firm representing the Orbison Estate calling “on behalf of their very angry client, Ms. Barbara Orbison” who didn’t have a clue we were using his image, blah blah blah. Now it was getting fun. I had an ace in the hole and she (the attorney) didn’t know what I knew. She didn’t know that Barbara Orbison had used the cartoon as her Christmas Card and had thanked me profusely and demanded she pay over and over. I finally spilled the beans and the funniest thing happened next.
She had been talking (as intimidating as she could) when I said, “And when you send the summons, you might call Barbara and ask her about our Christmas Card deal”. There was a silence and I could hear her move her chair from her desk and walk across the room. There was a “knock” on the door (she obviously knocked) and said it was an important client and she would get back to me as this was VERY important. Of course she never got back to me. She was lucky it was me and she didn’t sue. I could have easily sued back for a frivolous suit and won, but I admired Roy and Barbara Orbison too much to do that. I did recommend to Ms. Orbison to perhaps find a lawyer who knew the law, and I believe she dropped the firm ala drek.
That is not the first time I’d heard of such Fair Use chaos. Sparky Schulz told me a wonderful story of Mad Magazine having done a cover story parody of “Peanuts”. He had not yet seen it, but by the time he got out of bed, his legal firm had shot off a letter to Mad demanding not only a cease and desist of publication of the magazine (that their client was livid and ready to sue or settle), but also to buy up or have removed every magazine that was already on the stands. Sparky had no idea this had happened and later in the day happened to see the publication with Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, et al on the cover and bought up all he could find at the stands. He love it. He immediately shot off a congratulatory letter to Mad that it was the best parody of his lifetime.
From my understanding, that particular law firm was not working with Schulz after that event. There are many other such stories in the Naked City, but more and more cartoonists and caricaturists are becoming more savvy of the U.S. Constitution and that not every law firm exists to uphold it. In fact, many are there to erode it. Some are just plain ignorant, and many play fair. The ones who play fair go after artists who reproduce real products, photos, music, etc. that could easily be confused and is a copyright infringement. Parody is anything BUT a copyright infringement. You can pretty much weigh the strength of our Constitution with how strong parody is. And Saturday Night Live, Mad Magazine, and even my own cartoon are all still going strong, so I can gratefully say America, even with all its issues, is intact, no matter how hard the “telemarketing lawyers” try to make it not so; to weaken our own nation to fatten their pocketbooks. They truly should re-think returning to law school, and really learn this time.
Rick London is founder of the Internet’s #1 ranked offbeat comic Londons Times, and #1 funny gifts, ranked by Google and MSN.
Leave a Reply