Description

The influence of social media in the 21st century has led to new social norms of behaviour with a focus on the production of the self or an online public persona on various social media platforms.

David Tan draws on the fascinating writings of Mikhail Bakhtin on the medieval carnival and the laughing culture of the Renaissance to postulate that one may view the social media environment as a Bakhtinian digital carnivalesque, where creative practices can be perceived as modes of expression that present a resistance to authority. Within this environment, internet memes present a feast of challenges to exceptions and limitations in copyright law.

Memes encompass a wide range of expression about the human experience, while also existing as a playful mode of culturally permissible expression in online social communications rather than as self-contained and specific categories such a parody or satire. This seminar is based on an article published in the Fordham IP, Media & Entertainment Law Journal (Spring 2021) and it analyses how, and to what extend, internet memes should be protected by the fair use doctrine.