Issues related to copyright in political campaigns, such as remuneration, freedom of expression and public domain of the work animated the debate this Wednesday, 27, at the webinar “Copyright, Parodies and Electoral Campaigns”, promoted by ABPI. Under the moderation of ABPI’s president, Gabriel Leonardos, the event had as speakers Prof. Vânia Aiêta, from UERJ, the jurist Karin Grau-Kuntz and Prof. Pedro Marcos Nunes Barbosa, from PUC-RJ.
Opening the event, Gabriel Leonardos recalled art. 47 of the Copyright Law (Law 9.610/98) and the various cases in which the Judiciary considered legitimate the use of parodies in past electoral campaigns, by candidates José Serra, Dulcídio Amaral, Fernando Haddad and, in particular, mentioned the judgment , not yet finished in the STJ, related to the song “O Portão”, by Roberto Carlos, which is parodyed by the candidate Tiririca.
By focusing her exposition on the analysis of jingles, Professor Vânia Aiêta highlighted the economic implications of this type of advertising and recalled that, according to the Copyright Law, the use of intellectual creations for electoral purposes would depend on the acceptance and authorization of the authors. “The author cannot simply be extirpated from his work, as there are values at stake”, he said. And it addressed the issue of misappropriation. “It is death for the artist to see his creation as a springboard to promote a politician who propagates values absolutely divorced from his own”.
Karin Grau-Kuntz addressed the issue of parodies used in election campaigns. The jurist recalled that Brazilian law does not define what parody is. “The concepts involved in copyright are extremely complex and are not defined objectively”, he explained. “The parody is an autonomous creation and reminds us of the previous work, therefore it is independent of the original work”, he defended. She proposed as a starting point for the definition of parody the perception of the receiver/consumer and not the author of the work. “One of the points is to know if the receiver recognizes the original work in the parody theme”.
In the case of parodies in electoral campaigns, Karin suggested a case-by-case analysis, taking into account, among others, the role of the author and the way in which the patrimonial right is guaranteed.
In his presentation on the topic under debate, Nunes Barbosa made a distinction, in civil law, between consumer goods, civil goods and production goods. He stressed that production goods of an immaterial nature are uncontrollable. “There is no way to control not only the use of the work, but even less its meaning”, he said. For the professor, the debate on the use of authorial work in electoral campaigns has some constraints in terms of constitutional jurisdiction. He recalled, for example, that, in the case of biographies, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) opted for a preferential logic for freedom of expression and rejected the right to be forgotten. Another point to consider, according to him, is the disparate logic of intellectual property in the context of public law typically and electoral law. “In intellectual property, from an economic point of view, what is in dispute is the client, while in electoral law the dispute is over the vote, and votes are not fungible”, he said.
See the full webinar on the ABPI Youtube Channel