Poor "What What (In the Butt)." Once nothing more than a bizarre 2007 music video posing the question "You want to do it in my butt, in my butt?," it went viral, racking up more than 47 million YouTube views to date—until its creators got into a long-running lawsuit with the TV show South Park. That suit appeared to end earlier this month with a decision from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, which went out of its way to suggest that the video's creators were starting to look like "copyright trolls."

And the ill-considered case has actually turned out to do copyright law a bit of good by establishing that judges can make obvious "fair use" rulings early on in court proceedings, preventing litigants from simply running up the legal bill on the other side until they have to settle.

The video came from a two-person team called Brownmark Films in Wisconsin (proud state of my birth) and featured the vocal stylings of a performer named "Samwell." It was parodied almost shot for shot in a 2008 South Park episode, but transformed into animation featuring the foul-mouthed kids from the show. Brownmark received no money, and it thought it deserved some; it sued in 2010. (The singer and record company were apparently paid for the use of the music and lyrics.)

Last year, a federal trial judge tossed the case on the grounds that the South Park video was clear fair use. "The defendants used parts of the WWITB video to lampoon the recent craze in our society of watching video clips on the internet that are—to be kind—of rather low artistic sophistication and quality," he wrote. "The South Park episode 'transforms' the original piece by doing the seemingly impossible—making the WWITB video even more absurd by replacing the African-American male singer with a naive and innocent nine-year old boy dressed in adorable outfits."

More importantly, the judge tossed the case before any discovery had taken place, and before any trial. Both discovery and trial can cost huge sums of money at the federal level, but the judge said that the case was so clear, it was unfair to require a defendant to keep spending cash when the outcome was obvious.

Brownmark appealed to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, arguing that such a ruling should only come after a lengthy discovery process—Brownmark apparently believed it stood a chance of unearthing some damning bit of internal South Park evidence. Only when all such evidence was gathered should a judge rule, it said.

While the question might sound absurdly technical, it has profound implications for copyright law. Because copyright holders can pursue massive statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringement, and because going through federal discovery costs so much money, defendants often choose to settle such cases. If the original Brownmark ruling were upheld, at least part of that equation might get cheaper; confident defendants could go to court knowing that they did not necessarily have to spend huge sums just to get an initial fair use ruling.

On January 17, Brownmark argued its case before a three-judge appellate panel, who expressed skepticism about the company's position. On June 7, the judges codified that skepticism in a brief order upholding the original decision.

Brownmark argues that it should be allowed to discover: the intent of [South Park] at the time the episode was created; all relevant video images or clips, especially where such uses are divorced from the Episode; and pre-airing licensing information related to the Episode. We noted during oral argument that such a broad discovery request, surely entailing expensive e-discovery of e-mails or other internal communications, gives Brownmark the appearance of a "copyright troll."

As for the fair use claim, the judges agreed that it was "obvious." They concluded:

When a defendant raises a fair use defense claiming his or her work is a parody, a court can often decide the merits of the claim without discovery or a trial. When the two works in this case are viewed side-by-side, the South Park episode is clearly a parody of the original WWITB video, providing commentary on the ridiculousness of the original video and the viral nature of certain YouTube videos.

Back in 2010, the two guys behind Brownmark characterized themselves to a local Milwaukee paper as "just two guys who work on goofy art videos in Milwaukee, and we knew this would be a David and Goliath sort of lawsuit."

They didn't believe that the South Park video was "parody," but rather a slavish re-creation of their work for which they deserve a bit of cash. Unless they intend to push the "What What (In the Butt)" case to the Supreme Court, though, no money is forthcoming. But, hey, fair use got a bit more practical to use in lawsuits, so at least something useful came out of the case.