I am writing in support of the Copyright (Parody and Satire) Amendment Bill and I encourage the Select Committee to endorse the passage of the Bill in your report to the House.
I believe this addition to the fair dealing principles in the Copyright Act will foster free speech in New Zealand in a manner that would likely not impact the commercial value of copyrighted works. Consider, for example, the parody songs of artists such as “Weird Al” Yankovic. It is doubtful his rendition of “Foil” impacted the revenue relating to New Zealand musician Lorde in respect of “Royals”.
Richard Dawkins first coined the term “meme” in his book, The Selfish Gene (1976). He wrote that memes are units of cultural transmission. “Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves by leaping from brain to brain”
It has long been common for people communicating online to remix still images from well-known pieces of popular culture in online conversation and debate. Providing a humorous and concise shared reference. Much in the same way that a picture can be worth a thousand words. These are generally referred to as memes.
Members of the Committee are encouraged to examine a source such as The Internet Meme Database to appreciate how fully this method of communication has been embraced.
In fact, the Alexander Turnbull Library considers memes so representative of discourse that examples were collected from February 2020-February 2022 in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The present structure of the Copyright Act renders this kind of parody and satire as unlawful. Nations such as Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom have all recognised the wisdom of making exceptions for parody and satire within their intellectual property law and I would welcome the address of this oversight in New Zealand law.
Thank you for considering my submission.