Creative Protection

Judge Slams Attorneys in 'South Park' 'What What (In the Butt)' Copyright Lawsuit (Video)

Ruling says there wasn't ever much question that the show had fair use to viral music video and harshly criticizes the plaintiff for bringing the lawsuit.

12:55 PM PST 12/7/2011 by Eriq Gardner

As punishment for suing Viacom, the owners of the YouTube viral video What What (In The Butt) have been ordered to pay up the you-know-what.

In November 2010, Brownmark Films filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Viacom and Comedy Central over an episode of South Park that allegedly infringed the massively popular music video. In July, a federal judge dismissed the case, finding that South Park characters recreating the super-silly clip was clearly fair use. Now, the judge has also ordered Brownmark to pay Viacom more than $30,000 in attorney fees for making a legal action that interfered with free speech and wasn't a proper way to handle the situation.

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Lawmakers Pushing Bill That Could Land YouTube Lip-Synch Artists Behind Bars

By Pete Griffin

Record labels are clamoring for a chance to have their artist lip-synch alongside 16-year-old YouTube sensation Keenan Cahill in, of all places, his bedroom. But could a proposed amendment to the federal copyright infringement law potentially land Cahill, or any person lip-synching copyrighted material in a YouTube video, behind bars?

Senate Bill 978, a bipartisan measure introduced last month by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.), is backed by supporters who say it closes glaring loopholes in current copyright infringement law created by the realities of the digital age.

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Barney parodies are met with a snarl

By Rebecca Carr
Cox News Service
Published November 12, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Barney's official Web site promotes "sharing, caring, imagining, dancing and learning" for the preschool set. Now the affable dinosaur can add litigating to the list.

Barney's owner, Lyons Partnership, is in a legal squabble with a Web site creator who posted unflattering images of the children's character. The dispute is testing the boundaries of copyright law and free expression on the Internet.
Stuart Frankel, a musicologist from New York City, said he's promoting nothing more than laughter. He posted the Barney material to parody the Tyrannosaurus rex best-known for singing, "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family."

Lyons didn't laugh.

Matthew Carlin, a New York lawyer representing Allen, Texas-based Lyons, sent Frankel a series of cease-and-desist letters ordering him to remove the negative images or face the prospect of legal action for copyright infringement.

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