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Cameo Clips

BY Stan Soocher
August 29, 2011

COPYRIGHT FAIR USE/STAGE PRODUCTIONS

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled it was copyright fair use for the music group Green Day to include plaintiff Derek Seltzer's drawing “Scream Icon” as part of a video backdrop when the band played its song “East Jesus Nowhere” in concert. Seltzer v. Green Day Inc., CV 10-2103. Green Day's set designer Richard Staub had taken the “Scream” image from a wall on which Seltzer had displayed it in Los Angeles.

District Judge Philip S. Gutierrez found: “[T]he video backdrop created for East Jesus Nowhere is transformative. The different visual elements Staub added, including graffiti, a brick backdrop, and (especially) the large red cross over the image, considered in connection with the music and lyrics of East Jesus Nowhere, 'add[] something new, with a further purpose or different character' than Plaintiff's original work'” (quoting Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994). The district judge also noted “that because Defendants' use of Scream Icon was transformative, it is not likely to usurp the original or derivative market for Plaintiff's work.”

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