As long as the parody is transformative, and it has to be a critique of the thing it is parodying. Transformative simply means people won’t reasonably mistake it for the genuine thing.
The second part is where most people run afoul of parody laws though. For instance, you can’t make a parody of Family Guy using the established characters, and use it to make fun of a random politician who has no ties to the TV show. That may be transformative, but it wouldn’t be critiquing Family Guy or anyone connected to the show. It would just be using Family Guy’s characters to make fun of a third party.
That being said, the fact that Ted is now a political activist means you could likely argue that the door was wide open to parody the song and use it to attack conservative politicians that Ted has ties to. Just be sure you do something to attack Ted directly, to be sure you have fulfilled that second part.
Ted would undoubtedly still sue, by trying to claim that it was damaging his market value as a musician. Essentially, the parody has to exist peacefully alongside the original, instead of draining potential revenue. Ted would say that people were listening to the parody instead of his songs, which is lowering his income and harming him financially. If the parody harms the original IP owner financially, it isn’t considered fair use because it is market infringement.
Given, the counter to that would essentially be that the parody’s popularity is driving traffic to Ted’s songs instead of away from them. But that’s something that would need to be proven in court.
As long as the parody is transformative, and it has to be a critique of the thing it is parodying. Transformative simply means people won’t reasonably mistake it for the genuine thing.
The second part is where most people run afoul of parody laws though. For instance, you can’t make a parody of Family Guy using the established characters, and use it to make fun of a random politician who has no ties to the TV show. That may be transformative, but it wouldn’t be critiquing Family Guy or anyone connected to the show. It would just be using Family Guy’s characters to make fun of a third party.
That being said, the fact that Ted is now a political activist means you could likely argue that the door was wide open to parody the song and use it to attack conservative politicians that Ted has ties to. Just be sure you do something to attack Ted directly, to be sure you have fulfilled that second part.
Ted would undoubtedly still sue, by trying to claim that it was damaging his market value as a musician. Essentially, the parody has to exist peacefully alongside the original, instead of draining potential revenue. Ted would say that people were listening to the parody instead of his songs, which is lowering his income and harming him financially. If the parody harms the original IP owner financially, it isn’t considered fair use because it is market infringement.
Given, the counter to that would essentially be that the parody’s popularity is driving traffic to Ted’s songs instead of away from them. But that’s something that would need to be proven in court.