I can't see this being successfully tried for libel. Sakura-con (or rather, their parent company) would presumably be considered a public figure, so in order to win a libel case, they would have to prove actual malice (reckless disregard for the truth). That said, I can't see where they could possibly prove that. (See New York Times v. Sullivan. If you want a case where the public figure isn't also a public official, then I can find you one. That's just one of the most famous ones.)Pwolf wrote:The later example, which the parody is essentially doing to a degree, could be considered slander/libel (or fraud) which is against the law. I'm not a lawyer though so don't take my word on that.
Pwolf
Outside of that, there's plenty of potential defenses for the creator of the parody to use. For one thing, from what I can tell, nothing in the parody video is inherently untrue, so that's one easy defense. Nothing in the video ever claims that the video is made by Sakura-con or their parent company. In one sense, the parody is a critical commentary of Sakura-con and the way they do things, so fair comment becomes another libel defense. Tack on to that an opinion defense (First Amendment defense), and you're pretty well set on the libel front. And parody, as such, probably can't be tried successfully for libel anyway. (See Hustler v. Falwell. Only difference is Hustler put a disclaimer on their parody, though I would argue that wouldn't matter.)
The only reason I can see for this video to ever be take down is if the licensers of Yu-Gi-Oh claimed copyright infringement. It's really not parodying any aspects of Yu-Gi-Oh, so that part of the video may not be protected. Sakura-con still has no claim to pull this video down, though.
