Television's most talked-about panel last week was the U.S. Supreme Court, which may well have blunted the already dull needle of parody-on-the-air by ruling that "substantial" borrowing from an original work for a spoof is a violation of the copyright laws.
The ruling came on Jack Benny's 1953 Autolight, a is-minute filmed take-off on the 1944 movie Gaslight, which copied Gaslight's situations, scantily paraphrased many lines, even used the same names for its characters. Benny's lawyers admitted that Autolight closely reflected Gaslight, and argued this has always been necessary for good parody. The court split four to four (the missing justice: William O. Douglas). But the deadlock legally upheld two lower courts that banned the parody from the air at the insistence of the moviemakers.
The decision gave a guidepost of sorts to TV lawyers who have defended suits and threats of suits against such satirists as Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca by the makers of From Here to Eternity (won by the comics), The Country Girl (still in the courts) and On the Waterfront (dropped). Said one network lawyer: "This doesn't mean that parody is outlawed-only parody with a considerable degree of copying. You're on safe ground when the parody merely mimics style." Said another: "The ruling has made us considerably more cautious."
But even while the Benny suit was up for decision, comics were spoofing with caution; e.g., on his ABC show Caesar ribs only generalized subjects, and NBC's Steve Allen always tips off the TV program he plans to kid (so far, none has objected). From now on, Benny intends to get permission of anybody he parodies. Gloomed he: "I suppose now they won't even let me do Birth of a Nation. They're afraid we'd hurt the picture." Would the Supreme Court's ruling kill television, comedy? Snorted a CBS spokesman: "That doesn't kill it. Westerns did."