Friday, March 9, 2012

Case law quote of the day

"[S]exual congress with nameless streetwalkers is not necessarily the stuff of romance and is not necessarily without its consequences."

Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. v. Campbell, 972 F. 2d 1429, 1442 (6th Cir. 1992) (Nelson, J., dissenting).

Words to live by, for sure.

Judge Nelson was explaining in dissent how 2 Live Crew's version of "Oh, Pretty Woman" was a parody of Roy Orbison's original, and therefore qualified as "fair use" under copyright law. Although Judge Nelson lost the battle, he won the war: the Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit's decision and essentially adopted the logic of his dissent in one of its most important cases on the fair use doctrine.

1 comment:

  1. I guess this post will give us an indication of how often people google the phrase "sexual congress."

    ReplyDelete

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