Campbell v. Acuff-Rose

Citation: Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994).

Factual Background
Defendant rap group 2 Live Crew created a rap version of the 1964 song “Oh Pretty Woman,” by Roy Orbison. Defendants had requested permission from Acuff-Rose Music, Orbison’s assignee, to do a rap version, but was turned down. Acuff-Rose then sued for copyright infringement.

The district court granted summary judgment to 2 Live Crew, finding that the parody was a permissible fair use. The Sixth Circuit court of appeal reversed, relying primarily on the apparent Sony presumption against a fair use finding where the secondary work is of a commercial nature.

Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court reversed. The Court looked primarily at the first of the four fair use factors. The Court held that the “transformative” nature of parody argued in favor of allowing it to stand alongside the classic [fair use]] categories of criticism and commentary.

When a work is transformative, less significance should be placed on the other factors that may weigh against a finding of fair use, such as the “commercial nature” of the work. The Court said that ''[[Sony v. Universal City Studios

Sony]]'' did not establish any hard evidentiary or bright line presumption against commercial use being a fair use. The Court explained that the “‘presumption’ or inference” of market harm should be limited to cases in which the infringing work completely duplicates the original for commercial purposes.

In reviewing the third fair use factor, the Court also noted that copying the heart of the original work was not necessarily an unfair use, since “it is the heart at which parody takes aim.” The Court remanded for determination of whether the musical portion taken was substantial in relation to the Orbison work as a whole and to determine whether 2 Live Crew’s work harmed Acuff-Rose’s potential market for licensing rap versions of the underlying work.