the law says both things actually... some have parodies of live people and won in court, some lost... guess you'll have to get sued to find out
Parody
Parodies are entitled to a substantial degree of First Amendment protection. However, this protection must be balanced against intellectual property rights. See, for example, the Supreme Court’s application of the Doctrine of Fair Use in the copyright law context in Luther R. Campbell, et al. v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 114 S.Ct. 1164 (1994). In Cardtoons, L.C. v. Major League Baseball Players Ass’n, 838 F. Supp. 1501 (N.D. Okla. 1993), the Plaintiff sought a declaratory judgment claiming that it was not a violation of the publicity rights of well-known baseball players to produce and distribute cards with caricatures and names similar to those baseball players and containing text on the back that ridicules the players. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals balanced the publicity rights of the baseball players against the Plaintiff’s First Amendment right to use parody to criticize activities of public figures. The Court held that the Plaintiff was entitled to produce and distribute the cards. But see, White v. Sansung Electronics America, 971 F.2d 1395 (9th Cir. 1991) in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held, over two vigorous dissents, that a print advertisement using a robot that mimicked and parodied the persona of Vanna White infringed her right of publicity. Critics argued that celebrities’ monopolization of words, names and images of general cultural significance would lead to the depletion of the public domain and the stifling of free expression. However, recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that California’s right of publicity protects against uses of one’s image in advertising. Newcombe v. Adolph Coors Co., 157 F.3d 686 (9th Cir. 1998).
