GTA Parody Elements Pulled From Simpsons Game

The Grand Theft Auto section of the game is still there, but 1up is reporting that EA's The Simpsons game won't have any overt themes from the Rockstar title. That section is now labeled 'Mob Rules'. "Lead designer Greg Rizzer commented that 'if we make fun of Grand Theft Auto, we're not going to hurt the sales of Grand Theft Auto... But yeah, we've definitely had some reactions -- we've had to pull stuff from the game.' Otherwise, the trailer looks untouched, so it seems that the title was the major problem and not the parody game content itself ... Rockstar does have a point -- it's not as if they've ever used an existing work as inspiration for satire. Oh wait."

Re:Parody is protected free speech

[burris]

You absolutely can use a trademark to parodize/satirize the trademark itself or the trademark holder. The SCOTUS has held this to be protected speech. See the many examples of using Mickey Mouse and the trademark mouse ears to poke fun at Disney.

On the other hand, you can't use a trademark to make fun of something unrelated. You can't appropriate Hasbro's Monopoly trademarks to make fun of Microsoft, for instance.