Parody copyright laws set to come into effect; BBC News, 9/29/14

BBC News; Parody copyright laws set to come into effect:

"Changes to UK legislation are to come into force later this week allowing the parody of copyright works.

Under current rules, there has been a risk of being sued for breach of copyright if clips of films, TV shows or songs were used without consent.

But the new European Copyright Directive will allow the use of the material so long as it is fair and does not compete with the original version.

The new law will come into effect on 1 October.

Owners of the copyrighted works will only be able to sue if the parody conveys a discriminatory message.

It would then be down to a judge to decide if the parody is funny.

"The only, and essential, characteristics of parody are, on the one hand, to evoke an existing work while being noticeably different from it and, on the other, to constitute an expression of humour or mockery," the EU rules state.

"If a parody conveys a discriminatory message (for example, by replacing the original characters with people wearing veils and people of colour), the holders of the rights to the work parodied have, in principle, a legitimate interest in ensuring that their work is not associated with such a message.""