Analysis of the thinking process and logic used by previous judges.
The judges of this supreme court case were Justice Kennedy and Justice Souter. Both Justices concurred with one another. Justice Kennedy found reason that a parody qualifies as Fair Use. "..parody may qualify as fair use regardless of whether it is published or performed for profit. " "..parody may qualify as fair use only if it draws upon the original composition to make humorous or ironic commentary about that same composition." What Kennedy basically said is that a parody is considered Fair Use if it is humorous. In order for a song to have been a parody it would have used some of the orginal song to comment upon. A parody may also sound similar if it is specifally targeting a particular genre of style of music. "The parody must target the original, and not just its general style, the genre of art to which it belongs, or society as a whole (although if it targets the original, it may target those features as well)." source Some of Justice Kennedy's reasoning was refered to Rogers v. Koons. That case can be found here.
Justice Souter had commentary as well. In a parody, a song has taken the heart from another song to create the new one. All parody's created from an original song comment on the author's work. "For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist's claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works. See, e. g., Fisher v. Dees, supra, at 437; MCA, Inc. v. Wilson, 677 F. 2d 180, 185 (CA2 1981)." source
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