With “official” Olympic sponsors paying hundreds of millions of dollars as royalties for their “exclusive” rights to sell and advertise, the IOC is very vigilant in watching out for free riders. According to the New York Times, for example, Dennis Spurr, the owner of a butcher shop, who put a sign featuring the five Olympic rings made of sausages (see the sign here), was asked by the Olympic marketing police to remove the sign at his shop. The Olympic sausage rings came down, but the next day saw five interlocking sausage squares going up. The police came back with the threat of legal action. The sausage squares came down. But the witty Englishman had another idea: his sign shows now five frying pans. If the police turn up again? No problem. The next one will feature five handcuffs.
I doubt that handcuffs will have any luck to embrace Dennis Spurr's wrists. His signs with five sausage squares and frying pans have all textbook elements of a successful parody: a creative expression adopting basic features of the object while altering other features to achieve a comic or provocative effect. The basic idea of trademark parody defence is that parodies serve a valuable critical function, which enjoys the First Amendment protection. Although parody is not explicitly mentioned as a subject matter of fair use protection, case law is abundant with successful parody fair use cases. In a landmark parody case, "Campbell v Acuff-Rose Music" copyright infringement case, Souter J of the US Supreme Court established two elements essential to a parody fair use defence: that it has not taken any more of the original than necessary to make its point, and that the parody has not harmed the market for the original work. In light of these two elements, the sausage and frying-pan Olympic signs are exemplary parodies worthy of protection: it took as little as geometric forms and no cent has been stolen from the Olympic market share of McDonald, the official Olympic sponsor coming nearest to butcher business.
I doubt that handcuffs will have any luck to embrace Dennis Spurr's wrists. His signs with five sausage squares and frying pans have all textbook elements of a successful parody: a creative expression adopting basic features of the object while altering other features to achieve a comic or provocative effect. The basic idea of trademark parody defence is that parodies serve a valuable critical function, which enjoys the First Amendment protection. Although parody is not explicitly mentioned as a subject matter of fair use protection, case law is abundant with successful parody fair use cases. In a landmark parody case, "Campbell v Acuff-Rose Music" copyright infringement case, Souter J of the US Supreme Court established two elements essential to a parody fair use defence: that it has not taken any more of the original than necessary to make its point, and that the parody has not harmed the market for the original work. In light of these two elements, the sausage and frying-pan Olympic signs are exemplary parodies worthy of protection: it took as little as geometric forms and no cent has been stolen from the Olympic market share of McDonald, the official Olympic sponsor coming nearest to butcher business.
