Twenty-five years after the release of Roy Orbisonís song, "Oh Pretty Woman", 2 Live Crew wrote a vulgar parody satirizing the famous rock ballad. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., the owner of the copyright for the song, brought an action against Luther Campbell, the leader of the band 2 Live Crew, for copyright infringement. At issue in this case was the scope of the fair use provision of the Federal Copyright Act, which specifically permits unauthorized use of a work to criticize and comment upon the work. Ultimately, the Supreme Court examined whether 2 Live Crew's commercial parody was indeed a fair use of the original song within the meaning of the Federal Copyright Act.

The music publishing company claimed that Campbell had not made fair use of Orbison's song because Campbell's version had taken too much from Orbisonís original and used the work for commercial purposes. Campbell claimed that his parody was fair use because 2 Live Crew's song was a form of artistic expression which sought to comment upon and criticize the naivete of the original.

The Supreme Court agreed with Campbellís argument and held that parody, like other comment or criticism, may claim fair use under the Federal Copyright Act. The Court recognized that "parody has an obvious claim to transformative value [and] the goal of copyright, to promote science and the arts, is generally furthered by the creation of transformative works."