Parody Recognized Throughout the European Union

The Court of Justice of the European Union has recently ruled that the concept of parody must be regarded as an autonomous concept of EU law, in the case known as Dechmyn v. Vandersteen (case Case C 201/13).

Johan Dechmyn was a member of a far right political party in Belgium, and at a 2011 event he distributed calendars which included an image adapted from the cover of a comic book from Vandersteen's comic series, which is known in English by the title Spike and Suzie.

In the adaption of the comic book cover, the mayor of Ghent was depicted as one of the comic book characters, throwing gold coins to immigrants. The heirs of the owner of the original work sued in Belgium for infringement of copyright.

The Brussels Court of Appeal referred certain matters to the Court of Justice of the European Union in respect of parody law.

The original and modified images at issue in the case were as follows:

The defendant Dechmyn argued that the modified image was a political cartoon which fell within the scope of parody, and therefore permission from the copyright owner was not required.

The CJEU stated that parody must be regarded as an autonomous concept of EU law and interpreted uniformly throughout the European Union.

The Court found that there were two basic criteria for parody: Firstly that the work of parody evokes an existing work while being noticeably different from it, and, secondly, the work must constitute an expression of humour or mockery.

The reference to humour or mockery is wider than some jurisdictions interpret parody, such as the United States, where some courts require that the parody specifically comment on the original work or its...