Don Henley and Chuck DeVore have filed their respective summary judgment reply briefs in the copyright and Lanham Act suit over DeVore's campaign videos that took Henley's "The Boys of Summer" and "All She Wants to do is Dance" and substituted new lyrics attacking Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and President Obama. Here's Henley's brief and DeVore's. Again, the focus in the briefs is whether, under Campbell v. Acuff-Rose, the videos are fair use parodies that target the songs themselves, or infringing satires that merely use the works to comment on something else. As I've said before, I think DeVore faces a steep uphill battle to prevail on this point, given the facts and the existing law, but he has a much stronger argument on Henley's Lanham Act claim.
Kudos to both sides for what I thought were very well-argued briefs. The hearing on the cross motions for summary judgment is set before Judge James Selna in Santa Ana June 1 in this case that will help set the rules of the road for campaign uses of third-party material.
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