do i have to pay royalties for parody songs?

[God]

my band and i have written a few songs which are parodies of previously existing songs.
i tried to look up online to see if the copyright law requires that we pay royalties, but couldn't find anything.
we want to record the songs we've made, but if we need to pay for it, i don't know how we'd even go about it.
anyone know anything?

[asnakeny]

Generally, No. The Supreme Court case Cambell v. Acuff-Rose addressed this issue and ruled that Luther Cambell (of 2 Live Crew) did not owe royalties to the estate of Roy Orbison (Acuff-Rose) for doing a parody of the song "Oh Pretty Women".

However, if you do a parody, it would be wise to contact the rights owner of the original song to get permission (this is what Weird Al Yankovic makes a point of doing for his parodies) if only to save yourself the messiness of legal action (even if you win in the end, will it be worth the trouble?) Incidentally, even though the Court held in Luther Campbell's favor, he ended up settling with Acuff-Rose and paying royalties anyway.

[W K]

Certainly, around $6 per song.

[Spock (rhp)]

parody is a form of sarcastic commentary and is protected free speech. no royalties are due for the lyrics of the other song.

can't say about the music though ... you need an intellectual properties attorney for that one.