A discussion of the judgment of the Amsterdam Court of
Appeal of 13 September 2011, LJN BS 7825
In a case of principle the Amsterdam Court of Appeal has ruled on 13 September 2011 that parodies of
Nijntje are allowed. The case concerned, inter alia, the
following parody:
Earlier, the court in preliminary relief already allowed five
of the seven illustrations presented. The Court of Appeal has
stretched the boundaries even further: it considers all pictures
objected against by Dick Bruna and his company Mercis to be
permissible. The picture shown above ('nijn-eleven') was
not allowed on the basis of the 2009 judgment in preliminary relief
proceedings, but the Court of Appeal now ruled that also this
parody has an apparent humoristic and ironizing intention. It is
not necessary that everybody thinks it is funny. Therefore, this
picture is allowed on the Internet too.
