The 2015 fan short film Power/Rangers likely didn’t have producers errors & omissions insurance. A music video director by the name of Joseph Kahn posted a 14-minute Power Rangers parody on YouTube and it quickly went viral, garnering 1.4 million views.
All was not well, however, as Kahn said he was harassed by the owners of Power Rangers to take the video down because they said he was willfully engaging in copyright infringement. This is what producers errors & omissions insurance is for!
When you embark on a parody production you are immediately on shaky ground in terms of copyright infringement. If, however, Mr. Kahn had purchased producer’s errors & omissions insurance, the in-house legal counsel would have run title clearance to make sure that he was not doing what he is currently being accused of.
In short, it likely would have been impossible for Kahn to get insurance had he disclosed that he was using the intellectual property of Power Rangers without written consent. If this is true and he wasn’t able to get insurance, then he would be financially responsible for any court-ordered restitution he is ordered to pay to the IP holders. All hope is not lost, however.
Legal experts are saying there is a gray area where fan fiction is concerned. Usually it’s done by a little guy with not a heck of a lot of scratch and is a judge really going to side with a billion dollar studio over “Fred from his parent’s basement?” Doubtful. In any case, if purchased, producer’s errors & omissions insurance will cover court costs and settlements where the copyright infringement was proven unintentional. Having said this, it is important for content creators to do their own due diligence.
Otherwise, not even the Power Rangers will be able to save them once the blank hits the fan. The fan of Power Rangers.