Intrigued and inspired by the ‘kidult’ success of Dick’s robot, Sally decides to parody it to critique the way that contemporary society appears to encourage a blurring of the lines between adult and children’s culture and play.

 

She has a number of ideas for her parody. One idea is to re-present Dick’s robot as a clown, with the stereotypical red nose and squirting flower. After all, the essence of parody is humour, she thinks.

 

Another thought is to portray Dick’s robot in a manner that evokes Marcel Duchamp’s famous parody of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Duchamp’s parody, which he called L.H.O.O.Q., has itself been the subject of numerous subsequent parodies.

 

In the end, Sally settles on a depiction of the robot that also calls to mind Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, complete with the set of donkey’s ears that Pinocchio grew in Toy Land. When all is said and done, thinks Sally, if you are an adult who spends time playing with children’s toys you really are a bit of an ass.

 

 

Sally’s idea for a robot-Pinocchio-parody is given express form as she commits it to paper. It is original and protected by copyright. Her other possible parodies exist as ideas only and are not copyright-protected. They remain in the public domain.

 

Importantly, Sally is able to create her parody without having to ask Dick for permission. Dick owns the copyright in his work, and can prevent others from copying, publishing, renting or lending, or otherwise communicating his work to the public, unless their use is otherwise permitted by law. Sally has copied Dick’s work to create her parody, but she is permitted to do so by law. UK copyright law specifically provides an exception to copyright ‘for the purposes of caricature, parody or pastiche’. This means that it is lawful to create parodies that re-use works protected by copyright without having to obtain permission to do so from the copyright owners.