Eagle Attacks Elephant

They say that politics makes strange bedfellows. Don Henley, legendary voice of the Eagles found himself associated with Chuck DeVore, a California Assemblyman, and Republican, who created political songs by altering the lyrics to "The Boys of Summer" and "All She Wants to do is Dance."

DeVore used the music to the songs and created new lyrics to boost his campaign for the United States Senate. The assemblyman created videos from the song which were distributed and posted on YouTube.

Henley, who did not want to be associated with DeVore's campaign asked YouTube to remove the video. It did, but it was reposted following a request by DeVore. Now, Henley has sued.

This case will likely turn on whether the reworking of the two songs is protected under the fair use doctrine. DeVore will likely face an uphill battle to argue fair use. It is undisputed that he used all of the music from the two songs and there is nothing to suggest that the reworked songs were satire or parody.

Generally, to qualify as a parody, the new work must recall the original. The classic case of parody involves the group 2 Live Crew, which created a parody of the Roy Orbison classic "Pretty Woman." The Supreme Court was persuaded that the 2 Live Crew song was protected as fair use, largely because the Court concluded that the new work was in part a comment on the original work. Of course, parody is a subjective concept, so it is difficult -- if not impossible -- to define bright line rules to follow.