In what is not the first complaint over their controversial animation series South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been sued for copyright infringement.
The parties behind the lawsuit – filed in the US District Court in Wisconsin – are executives at production company Brownmark Films, who claim that the South Park creators unlawfully parodied their YouTube video, ‘What What (In the Butt)’ by Samwell, in a 2008 episode of the show called ‘Canada on Strike’.
In the South Park episode, the main characters post a video on YouToob, a fictional version of YouTube, featuring another character performing the song.
The creators of the original viral video – which received more than 33 million views when first released on YouTube – have claimed that the South Park copyright breach is:
“wilful, intentional, and purposeful, in disregard of and indifferent to the rights of Brownmark”.
Brownmark Films is calling for an injunction banning the episode from being aired again to be enforced, as well as seeking damages from Parker and Stone, who after so many threats of legal action over the show’s parodies have now presumably taken out some form of professional indemnity insurance for copyright infringement issues.