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David Gerrold penned book gets 9th Circuited

Reading this opinion, one wonders how the lower court could have possibly come to the conclusion that they did.

One also wonders why CBS did not take equivalent legal action towards ComicMix. Does Oh the Places You'll Boldly Go! really qualify as a parody of Star Trek? Perhaps CBS was content to sit back and let Dr. Seuss Enterprises pay to litigate the case and ultimately stop the book's publication?

Ultron Claus said:
“spaceship Enterprise.”

Motion to disbar.
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I'll allow it.
 
And yet Simon and Schuster can get away with this:

m_5faac9fc941f17c8b00718a0.jpg


:shrug:
 
So far. Has it also been challenged?

I'm very surprised about the Gerrold book. Parodies are generally protected. This decision is almost in the realm of "chilling effect."

AFAIK, still, the major labels weren't suing the remixers in remix culture on soundcloud etc. in case they the labels lost. One of the pieces of fair use that let you do something is if it is "transformative," and the labels were kinda assuming that the new works would be judged transformative, then Katy Bar the Door.

Gonna follow this thread and read more.
 
Yeah, say what you will about motives and whatnot, but a Doctor Seuss / Star Trek mash-up seems to fit the definition of parody in every conceivable way. This seems like a bad judgment, not just for Star Trek, but for society in general.
 
If you read the opinion the reasons are pretty well spelled out. They deliberately made the book mimic the graphic style of Suess to the point where it isn’t substantially different. It’s aimed at the exact same market. It does not meet the fair use criteria of parody or commentary since it is simply slapping a Star Trek veneer onto an existing work. Therefore it is not substantially transformative.

The “Oh the Places You’ll Eff Up“ book does not look like a Dr. Seuss book. The style is completely different. It cannot therefore be confused with a licensed property.

People have gotten into the habit of mixing up mash-up with parody and they are not the same thing. This ruling is also in agreement with a previous ruling on an O.J. Simpson parody which similarly exploited Seuss.
 
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Hm. Ok. I am a big believer in copyright and have gone round and round with people who think ppl should just create for free.

Interesting stuff.

Parody does, to me, imply humor, either about the song itself, or transforming it to make fun of something else, so I can see this Gerrold one as not parody. Very interesting.
 
Ty Templeton. I haven't seen that name in years, since I quit reading the late-80's Justice League International.
 
All "rights" are limited by the needs of the common good. Laws and govt actions by the will of the majority restrict our abilities to act; judges determine if there is a compelling interest to restrict us or not.

How we roll.
 
The case sets no precedent. It merely reaffirms what the 1997 9th Circuit ruling on another alleged Fair Use as "parody" of the same work: The Cat NOT In the Hat! by "Dr. Juice".

CATNOT1.jpg

Back on the initial ruling an article on JD Supra covered the similarity and differences between the cases. (link)

But the 9th Circuit Ruling overturned this.

The Cat NOT In the Hat 9th Circuit ruling is summarized on copyright.gov (link).

The Courthouse News piece I linked above (link again) includes:

The panel noted they rejected a previous claim involving another Seuss classic “The Cat in the Hat,” which retold the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial in “The Cat NOT in the Hat! A Parody by Dr. Juice.”

Likewise, the Star Trek mash-up was not transformative of “Oh, the Places You’ll Go,” the panel found, rejecting Comic-Mix’s argument the work was transformative because it replaced Seuss characters and elements with Star Trek material.

“While ‘Boldly’ may have altered Star Trek by sending Captain Kirk and his crew to a strange new world, that world, the world of ‘Go!,’ remains intact. ‘Go!’ was merely repackaged into a new format, carrying the story of the Enterprise crew’s journey through a strange star in a story shell already intricately illustrated by Dr. Seuss,” McKeown wrote.

“Although ComicMix’s work need not boldly go where no one has gone before, its repackaging, copying, and lack of critique of Seuss, coupled with its commercial use of ‘Go!,’ do not result in a transformative use,” the panel added.​
 
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Yeah, I don't know, man. The OJ book and the Star Trek book both are so far from Seuss's works, that I don't know how anyone can say, with a straight face, that they would believe Dr. Seuss (or his designated successor?) could have written them. They both seem the very definition of a parody, a match-up that entertains by the juxtaposition of the two disparate worlds. That it works side by side is a feature, not a hindrance, to its parodical nature and Templeton's talent.

This type of litigiousness displayed by Seuss's Company should be reserved for predatory knock-offs that claim to be from Seuss rather than clearly marked parodies that make no such claim.
 
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