New York  |  Entertainment Law

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7/31/09, 2:36 pm

Legal Question


I recently produced an independent feature film that will be shown in festivals and (hopefully) gain distribution. There were a number of improvised bits that made it into the movie, and I wanted to make sure all were legal:\n- A character sang a song to the tune of \"Tonight, Tonight\" from West Side Story, but with completely changed words. Does this count as parody?\n- A character hummed the first four notes of \"The Final Countdown.\" Is that enough to qualify?\n- A character spoke/sung the first line from \"You Took the Words Right Out of my Mouth\" by Meatloaf, but did not use the melody at all. Is just a spoken line protected?\n- A radio can be heard for under a second in one scene. I can\'t recognize what song is playing at all. Do we need to worry about this?\n- One of the characters played with an action figure that we found in a park in which we were shooting. It turns out it may be a Luke Skywalker figure without the accessories. Do we need to be worried about this? Does it matter if we never show it up close?\n\nThank you in advance for your answers!


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