So the paradigmatic case of transformative fair use involved music and
that involved a parody of the song, Oh Pretty Woman.
As we've said a few times, the most common transformative fair use for
music is parody, which indeed this case was.
And that's probably because parody was so
important in the Pretty Woman decision that the Supreme Court heard.
And the case really was the beginning of a shift towards the use of
transformation as a very important factor in fair use analyses.
>> Mm-hm.
>> So Pretty Woman was a song that was written and sung by Roy Orbison.
And in the 1980s the rap group Too Live Crew made a parody of the song.
They changed some of the words and they made it into a very,
very different- >> [LAUGH] Yes it was.
>> Type of song [LAUGH] it was when they started.
It was no longer about this beautiful, pretty woman, it was much more derogatory.
And the purpose, of course, of the parody was commercial,
they intended to sell CDs, and they did.
So, Roy Orbinsons's music company didn't have much of a sense of humor about this
and they sued.
And so litigation went on for some years as litigation tends to do.
And finally the case ended up at the Supreme Court,
where they held that the parody was fair use because the purpose of the new song
transformed the original.
It was no longer the same song, it didn't have the same purpose, and
very importantly, it didn't have an effect on the market for the original song.
The Supreme Court justices really felt that the people
who would buy the parody would not necessarily
have ever bought the original- >> Sure.
>> For example.
And of course, if there were any harm to the market for the original,
there was also the issue of the First Amendment and the free expression.
And the fact that a parody just has to be protected to some degree,
in that no original artist is gonna be crazy about a parody.
>> Sure. >> Not in most cases.
>> Sure.
>> Yeah, so since the purpose was so obviously transformative, and
the risk of the market harm was so negligible, the court held that
the other factors in the fair use analysis became less important.
>> Mm-hm. >> The transformative nature of the work
had such a big impact on the entire way that we looked at fair use in
this context.