Seuss-Star Trek mashup crashes and burns at Ninth Circuit | Hacker News Reader

Seuss-Star Trek mashup crashes and burns at Ninth Circuit

courthousenews.com

102 pointsanigbrowl87 comments

It'll be nice when we can finally get rid of copyright when the writers of a property are long dead. Looks like Dr. Seuss and Gene Roddenberry died almost 30 years ago.

It's kind of ironic that Star Trek envisions a post-scarcity society where we can abandon pettiness like this and build on each others works and explore the universe while in the real world the petty owners of the copyright use the power of the state to prevent people from writing their own book using their own labor, creativity, and funds using characters from the 1960s or earlier.

In effect, the copyright owners are saying: "We own the society and its culture. Do not touch."

But how will we incentivize Dr. Seuss or Gene Roddenberry to create new works if we don't "protect" their current works? /s

(Don't even get me started about companies whose entire business is built on "monetizing" the public domain and locking it in a "vault"... >sigh<)

Edit: I'm not anti-copyright. Egregious length of copyright term is my main beef. I think limited time monopolies (patents and copyrights) can produce a lot of good for society. The contract has to be favorable to both parties, though. Letting those who "own" items of "intellectual property" starve the public domain for too long, particularly when so many works end up being orphaned (and effectively unusable for anyone), is what I have a problem with. Right now the contract for copyright is too stilted in favor of the "owners", to my mind.

Would you consider this an acceptable first step? It is clearly a compromise, as it does not attempt to reform 'sale of rights' nor does it place works into the public domain until fifty years after they're created, but it explicitly neutralizes the ability to perpetuate and renew copyright through inheritance, transfer, or inclusion wrapping, while protecting against hacks such as modifying the law (as Disney likes to do), since those modifications could only affect future works, per the immunity clause.

"When this law takes effect, the following terms are irreversibly assigned to all past and future copyrights, and in case of contradictions, these terms have ultimate precedence over all past and future declarations: Copyrighted works enter the public domain in the sooner of ten years after the death of all persons identified as creators of the work, fifty years after the creation of the work, and fifty years after the registration of the work; those works where no persons are registered as the creators shall enter the public domain in the sooner of ten years after the dissolution of non-person entities registered as the creator, thirty years after the creation of the work, and thirty years after the registration of the work."

I'd go with something like "30 years after publication or 30+5 years after creation whichever is earlier". (Duration to be bikeshed)

The "after publication" part is the common case and easy to handle this publication dates are easy to figure out. The "after creation" part is a fallback in case works are discovered long a after their creation. I don't like basing it on the Author's lifetime, it feels both unfair and complicates the rule significantly.

fifty years after the creation of the work, and fifty years after the registration of the work

Is it possible to register a copyright before the work is created?

ten years after the death of all persons identified as creators of the work

Probably don't want this part. Murder for hire to reduce copyright terms by 40 years?

The entire "life of the author" thing is ridiculous. So you get a longer copyright for something you write when you're 20 than something you write when you're 70? Why? Are we trying to reduce the relative incentive for more experienced authors to continue writing?

Just make it 50 years.

I think 50 is far too long. Patents for inventions that have the potential to revolutionise the way we live our lives only get 20 years of so-called protection. Creative publications that only provide emotional enrichment at best should be given the same or less time as patents.

It should be the speed of culture progressing. I'd be happier with something like 10 years, and paying exponentially increasing fees to renew it past that mark in exchange for keeping culture locked up.

Trademarks? That's a consumer protection service and for a small percent of profits on marked items plus a flat fee should be allowed.

> It should be the speed of culture progressing. I'd be happier with something like 10 years, and paying exponentially increasing fees to renew it past that mark in exchange for keeping culture locked up.

The exponentially increasing cost works well. Start off at a $10 registration for ten years, then multiply by 10 for each subsequent ten year registration. You want to renew that 120 year old copyright on an individual work? No problem, that'll be ten trillion dollars for the next ten years, see you in ten years when it's a hundred trillion.

Meanwhile 90% of everything enters the public domain inside of twenty years because it's not worth paying a thousand bucks for another ten.

> Trademarks? That's a consumer protection service and for a small percent of profits on marked items plus a flat fee should be allowed.

Trademarks are fine the way they are. Nobody is complaining about the term of trademarks, which is as long as you're actually using it.

It would actually be better if copyright required that -- so that if you want to retain a copyright it can't be out of print for more than ten years.

Sure, I am persuaded, and it's much simpler that way, too. Works for me! I release it into the public domain :)

I just wrote this in a few minutes during dinner so I'm not heavily invested in it or anything. It's just a way to learn more about the person I'm responding to. Easier to ask a question about a tangible than an imaginary and all that.

I thought it was so that no one kills the author to end their copyright

In French, copyright is called "author's rights". When I hear that copyright endures 70 years after death... well it's not longer the author's right

My favorite example of this hypocrisy is still that the Disney film sleeping beauty would have been illegal to make because Tchaikovsky's ballet would have still been under copyright had the rules that Disney themselves later lobbied for been in effect

Don't forget "Peter Pan". J.M. Barrie, the original author, donated the work to Great Ormond Street children's hospital with the intention that they would earn royalties from it. Disney claims the work is now in the public domain and does not pay royalties.

Applying their own logic, Disney is stealing from a children's hospital.

Star Trek doesn't really show a post-scarcity society. See Kirk's apartment in SF. He's clearly got an apartment with a view of the bay around the 30th floor of some building. Others don't get the view or the 30th floor since the both are scarce.

So are positions like "being the captain".

Replicators might lift everyone out of poverty but the won't change how people feel about others using their creative works.

"Post-scarcity" doesn't mean nothing ever is scarce - that's impossible to achieve (simply because humans can invent new categories of things to want). "Post-scarcity" means all the things you need to survive, plus a good chunk of the things you'd reasonably want, are so cheap to make or in such abundance, that they become effectively free and unlimited. Thanks to fusion power and matter replicators, that is the case for humans in Star Trek universe.

The behavior of companies owning Star Trek IP stands in stark contrast with the values preached by the show. It's not just fictional post-scarcity vs. real-life market economy; the IP owners are aggressively and self-destructively greedy (much like the Ferengi of Star Trek). It's sad to watch, really - Star Trek has an extremely dedicated and creative fanbase that could be endlessly monetized if given a modicum of consideration. Instead, fan contributions are terminated with extreme prejudice.

Yes, I'm still sour about how they treated Stage9 - a fan recreation of the entire Enterprise-D in Unreal Engine. See [0], [1] for some visuals. CBS lawyers killed this, because of course they did. Would they lose money because of this project? Nope. Would they make money because of it? Sure, through renewed interest. They could've done a number of things, including officially subcontracting the developers and selling the work officially. But they didn't, they killed it. And they'll never produce anything that even comes close to this.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAM2dEEulBk

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8wpO8ONYm8

The problem of someone using something someone else created will not go away in the post scarcity society.

The issue is not money. The issues are fame, recognition, moral rights (https://www.jasrac.or.jp/ejhp/copyright/person.html) etc...

There's a reason even "free licenses" have a "No Derivatives" option

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Removing money (post scarcity) will not change that many authors don't want their creations re-used without their consent.

Creative Commons themselves say that "No Derivatives" licences are not approved for free culture in the licence builder tool.

Bad example as that could’ve been a holographic view.

Better would be the episode of Voyager where the Doctor’s holo-novel ends up in a legal dispute after they make contact with the Federation and he looks for a publisher, but the publisher publishes it without his permission and tries to argue he’s not a person and has no author rights.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Author,_Author_(episode...

Star Trek had lots of episodes based on public domain mythology and literature.

Brother Grimm fairy tales Disney fairy tales were based on were almost newer to them at the time than those old Disney movies are now.

The article doesn't specifically mention the concept of parody versus satire, but it's instrumental here: The authors of the book wanted to make the case that their book was a parody, but the court essentially ruled that it was satire.

A quick primer on the difference: https://lizerbramlaw.com/2019/03/06/fair-use-or-not-parody-v...

Right. It surprises a lot of people that the law on parody hinges on whether the humorous target of the parody is the work it itself is parodying or something else.

From the ruling, quoted in the article:

> ’Boldly’ is not a parody. ComicMix does not seriously contend that ‘Boldly’ critiques or comments on ‘Go!.’

When most people think of parody they think of things like Weird Al Yankovic songs (as this article mentions), which definitely don't critique or comment on the songs they're based on - Eat It says nothing about Beat It; The Saga Begins doesn't have anything to say about American Pie. And of course it doesn't actually matter: somewhat famously, Weird Al actually licenses the songs he uses in his 'parodies', and doesn't rely on the 'right to parody' at all.

But the layman's meaning of parody persists. Weird Al's own FAQ says:

> Al does get permission from the original writers of the songs that he parodies. While the law supports his ability to parody without permission, he feels it’s important to maintain the relationships that he’s built with artists and writers over the years.

(https://www.weirdal.com/archives/faq/#:~:text=Al%20does%20ge....)

So it's maybe not surprising that there's a pretty broad cultural understanding that 'parody' means 'transforming something copyrighted in a way that's sort of funny'.

I mean, the Wikipedia article for The Saga Begins literally starts:

> "The Saga Begins" is a parody song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It parodies "American Pie" by Don McLean...

But the law disagrees. It's not a parody in the sense of parodic 'fair use'. As far as copyright law is concerned, it's a derivative work, and Don McLean can dictate the terms under which Weird Al is allowed to publish it.

There’s multiple parts to Weird Al’s Licensing scenario, because oddly - The law separates out copyright on what we broadly know as “songs” into two parts. The lyrics are legally distinct from the melody that they are sung to[1].

Weird Al licenses his parodies, both the lyrics and the music, but additionally asks for permission from the singer/songwriter out of respect for the artists. Often the copyrights on both lyrics and melody are assigned to someone (or usually, corporate entity) other than what we think of as the “Artist”. He possibly (depending on the song in question) has a legal case for some of his lyrical parodies (Not so much “The Saga Begins”, but “Addicted to Spuds” is certainly a parody of love songs in general and “Addicted To Love” in that blast radius), but he plays the original melody, and that requires him to license his work.

Apropos but distinct: Figuring out the copyrighting entity, or if there’s a copyright at all, is itself a challenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You#Copyrigh...

[1]https://www.copyrightuser.org/create/creative-process/going-...

Another important point is that in the USA the license for the lyrics is subject to copyright holder approvals and price negotiations. The music however is subject to a compulsory license. Anyone can pay the fee and perform the music.

His own comments on the matter are that it come down more to a matter of politics than actual legality. At least, in the one case[1] that a record label (rather than the artist) told him no, he seemed confident that he could still have sold the song, and he had no problem releasing it anyway.

{1}https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=548277...

Yeah, I think Weird Al does occasionally do parody in the legal sense. Amish Paradise for example definitely has something to say about the relationship of hip hop and gangsta culture, which is probably protected parody.

Can you give an example of what you would consider to be an actual parody? Because I think that 'The Saga Begins' is indeed making fun of 'American Pie.'

Weird Al is not simply adding any lyrics over the song but instead chose a long and convoluted story arc that awkwardly fits into American Pie's song structure. By including so much story detail from Star Wars into the song Weird Al effectively points out how ridiculous the profound but ultimately meaningless character archetypes are in the original song.

No he’s not. He’s just using a song that starts with the line ‘a long long time ago’ to tell a story that starts ‘long ago in a galaxy far away’.

American Pie is filled with metaphors and allusions and is an impressionistic tale of the declining optimism of the sixties after the original exuberant promise of rock ‘n’ roll was lost in the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly.

The Saga Begins is a literal retelling of the story of The Phantom Menace - it doesn’t allude to themes or disillusionment or draw a clever parallel between the narratives. It doesn’t comment on American Pie or even on The Phantom Menace. It’s just a ‘humorous’ cross-cultural mashup of two copyrighted properties.

But that’s irrelevant, anyway. The point isn’t what I consider constitutes parody, but rather what the law considers as parody, which is specifically that if you are critiquing or lampooning a work, you are permitted to do so by borrowing from it and using elements that otherwise you would not be permitted to under copyright law.

Its intent is not to say that ‘anything that’s just intended to be funny is exempt from copyright requirements’, it’s specifically to prevent copyright owners from suppressing criticism of their work using copyright law.

So if you wrote alternative lyrics to American Pie that, for example, drew attention to the fact that its rose tinted view of sock hops and rock ‘n’ roll at the end of the fifties is rooted in a privileged white perspective, Don McLean would not be able to use copyright law to stop you publishing that.

But if you decided to just tell the story of a movie using Don McLean’s music, he is well within his rights to tell you you can’t (or come to a license agreement with you so that you can).

Weirdly, though, now that Weird Al has been there and done that, if you were to write an alternative set of lyrics to the Saga Begins that told the story of some obscure art house movie, say, parodying the way Weird Al used the song to just retell a movie plot... you might have a parody defense.

> It surprises a lot of people that the law on parody hinges on whether the humorous target of the parody is the work it itself is parodying or something else.

You haven't finished your documentation yet. Like:

"The value returned by detonate() depends on whether or not the method succeeded or failed."

Edit: clarification

Your comment is even more obtuse than the one you are complaining about. You meant to ask: Does the law's protection of parodies require that the parody target the work it is a parody of, or to target something else?

Thanks, I wasn't really aware of that distinction. I haven't read the decision yet. Do you have a sense of how important the distinction actually is in this case? I assumed the larger question was whether it was "transformative". For comparison, I was astounded by the decision that Richard Prince's work was considered fair use: http://www.artistrights.info/cariou-v-prince.

Quoting from that page (which I realize is just a synopsis and not a legal opinion): "In order to be fair use, a secondary use must transform the original by employing it in a different manner or for a different purpose than the original in order to produce a new expression, meaning, or message. A secondary use does not need to comment on or critique the original in order to be transformative as long as it produces a new message."

Is this really less transformative than painting a guitar and some face paint on someone else's photograph? Given that both cases involved overturning the decision of a lower court, clearly both sides are arguable here. It makes me wonder if this is really just a Circuit split, with different standards in different regions. Is there a canonical Supreme Court case here with national precedent that would unify these decisions?

I'd be interested in seeing a meta-analysis of all of these fair use copyright cases. The only consistency I see so far is that the side with more money ends up winning.

Seuss > crowdsourced star trek

pictures sold for $8k total < paintings sold for $2M each

It sounds like Prince’s work really had a different meaning than the original photograph, whereas the Star Trek “Go” had essentially the same message as the original.

Thanks for posting this. Are there cases that set precedent for satire not being protected under the doctrine of Fair Use? I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure if the quoted Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. case set that precedent, or if it was just quoted to show the difference between parody and satire in the eyes of the law.

Campbell v. Acuff-Rose is the precedent at the Supreme Court level for parody, even commercial parody, potentially qualifying as fair use. Other lower courts had held as much in earlier cases, as well as in other cases holding that works were not parody in the sense relevant for copyright (crucially, that they were not commenting on the work they copied from).

Campbell not only held that "Pretty Woman" by 2 Live Crew was fair use as parody, but also discussed the distinction of parody and satire: "Parody needs to mimic an original to make its point, and so has some claim to use the creation of its victim's (or collective victims') imagination, whereas satire can stand on its own two feet and so requires justification for the very act of borrowing." To some extent it simply codified a distinction already present in lower court decisions, but as the Supreme Court precedent it set the standard nationwide.

The case doesn't explicitly hold that satire is not fair use, or even that parody is fair use. Fair use is a case-by-case, multi-factor test that characteristically lacks bright lines. A "merely" satirical work that copied less of the original, or was extremely transformative, could be fair use. Parody and satire often co-exist and even "parody-ness" is a sliding scale that can affect the analysis. In practice though, Campbell is a pretty "bright-ish" line: if a commercial work obviously copies from an original, a court calling it "satire" as opposed to "parody" is almost certainly not going to find fair use.

If others aren't aware, the somewhat formal sounding "Campbell v. Acuff-Rose" regards the legality of 2 Live Crew's cover of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman". The Supreme Court held that it was clearly a parody, and thus clearly fair use. Equally clearly, seeing as the Supreme Court was reversing the earlier decision of the Appeals Court, it wasn't actually that clear to some. In any case, it's also a delightful listen to a more innocent era in rap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMqnPVU207M.

That said, I'd also be interested in an answer to heavyset_go's question. I think the answer is "no", and that it's only a case of "parody" being a positive example of transformation rather than "satire" being a negative. The decision in this case, for example, doesn't actually even mention the term "satire", and instead relies on the (not particularly well defended) opinion that setting Star Trek in the world of Go! might be transformative for Captain Kirk, but it is "not transformative" to Go!.

I don't necessarily disagree with the legal opinion here, but I think copyright has gotten way out of control and it's time to remake these laws. It should prevent flat-out photocopying and resale of a book, but nothing else. If you draw your own illustrations for the text of some book -- have at it. If you invent your own scenarios involving the characters of a book -- have at it. If you invent new words for an existing song -- have at it.

All of these things are under threat and probably completely illegal at this point, and I don't think that's where society wants to be in another 200 years. It might be time to rethink what people actually want here, and change the laws.

I would be fine with authors retaining rights to such uses for 14 years optionally extensible to another 14. But the current effectively perpetual copyright regime (plus additional trademark rights over characters from copyrighted works) is a gross overreach.

Is this really necessary? "xxx is a George W. Bush appointee. xxx also a Bush appointee, and Barack Obama appointee xxx joined xxx opinion."

Perhaps when discussing items of moral importance and life or death judgments it may be of historical/cultural reference but a copyright conflict seems rather out of bounds for such detail.

In this case it's probably superfluous to include under which president the judge was appointed, but there is merit to including the information generally.

The Circuits ordinarily hear cases in 3-judge panels (occasionally cases are heard en banc, where more/all of the circuit judges will hear the case). The outcome of a large number of cases can be predicted based upon the composition of the panel.

So where "conservative" judges make up 2/3 or 3/3 of the panel, you tend to see "conservative" (read: pro-business, pro-prosecution) outcomes and vice-versa with "liberal" judges.

It could be coincidence, but as someone who has followed circuit opinions for years, the panel composition has corresponded with the ultimate outcome a surprising number of times. (N.B. it would be interesting to statistically track the panel composition/outcome metric to see how often the correlation actually exists).

That seems somewhat wrong...? I mean these judges are supposed to be impartial, but if outcome is mostly based on who gets picked, then that isn't the case.

I think it comes down to how both sides view impartiality. There's definitely confirmation bias when the president nominates a judge - often the candidates come from the same party so they share some broad ideological positions.

Most judges I think do see themselves as impartial jurists even if the results tend to skew toward political outcomes.

Hah! That’s not the “confirmation bias” I’m used to, but very apt.

Agree it seems a bit wrong. Worth bearing in mind that cases which go to higher courts are usually ones which lower courts think aren't clear, or different courts disagree.

funny, that was the main thing I noticed and appreciated about the journalism. why would you not want this made clear in the context of judges doing the very thing we're thinking about when they're appointed (ruling on stuff)?

imho, this is the "rubber hits the road" context. if we want our opinions of appointments to be grounded in... well... reality, then we should maybe care less about appointments when they're abstractly happening and we're horse-betting, and think MORE about them when they're ruling.

Frankly, I'm confused how you're thinking about this, such that you would think someone WOULDN'T appreciate having this inline. Do you think politics are some dirty thing that we should become amnesiac about as soon as someone is executing their duties...? Sorry, I'm just confused. Can you explain the foundational belief underpinning your comment?

Many people (including myself and I assume the original commenter) feel that judging is supposed to be an apolitical duty. So saying "Randy Smith, also a Bush appointee," sounds problematic to me in the same way as "Randy Smith, also male" would: it's not false, but the mindset where it matters is deeply concerning.

>judging is supposed to be an apolitical duty

Supposed to be, but in many cases is not, which is why those details are important.

The problem is that emphasizing the details also feeds back into the politicization. It would be like responding to political bias at the DMV by having every clerk wear a little badge saying which party they are: there might be a few people who will use that information to better investigate and detect bias, but a lot of people are going to see the political labelling and conclude it's just a deliberately political function of government.

And I don't think this is an abstract hypothetical; I've seen an increasing number of people in recent years dismiss even the aspiration to a nonpartisan judiciary as silly and naive.

I don't agree -- I highly value our being humbled by how often a judge from "the other side" votes our way -- but genuinely appreciate hearing how you're thinking about it. Thanks for the words

It's useful for voters to know how they can expect appointees to rule, and to hold administrations to account.

This might seem obvious, but: if copyright is within the scope of the court, then it's within the scope of the appointment. Therefore, it's relevant.

I dunno. A lot of people jump to the conclusion that things are partisan political decisions these days even when they're not.

That's my reading: a defense of the party impartiality of the judiciary more than any attribution to a partisan group.

Of course they could still be biased say, in favor of those with power and capital. But since in practice, both political parties bow to capital with effectively equal deference, such a bias wouldn't surface by merely listing out which president appointed whom.

> Perhaps when discussing items of moral importance

The scope of free speech protections (and, on the other side, the scope of personal property rights as well) is a matter of moral importance, moreover the scope of free speech protections is a matter on which there is particularly active current controversy in which a sharp partisan divide on the issue is part of a central political narrative, and this is a significant factor in modern American politics.

I guess it depends on what one considers necessary...

If you did a survey, I would believe public opinion to be closer to "judges are partisan and always decide along ideological lines" than reality.

With that assumption, mentions of who appointed judges when writing about their decisions would also work against public cynicism on this issue.

Unless, of course, people somehow manage to give more weight to evidence confirming their biases than evidence against.

Yes, it is. In fact, I missed that last paragraph while skimming for the link to the decision and went straight to wikipedia to check the details on the three justices involved. It's nice to imagine that we shouldn't attribute partisan lean to our courts, but in the real world we all know there is one in many cases. And it's important to know when evidence cuts against that trend as much as it is when it confirms our priors.

Very necessary, it validates how impartial the court is to some people.

There are people that would question a court's validity more if some midwestern appeals circuit had 3 Trump appointees reversing an opinion, just like there are other people that would raise an eyebrow at anything the ninth circuit rules.

So they list who was appointed by whom.

Oh the Places You Go was first published in 1990 and is protected by US copyright for the life of the author plus 70 years. Dr. Seuss died in 1991 (OtPYG was the last book published in his lifetime) and so the book will remain under copyright until 2061.

My problem with this ruling isn't that it clashes with my instincts, it's that it will continue to be enforceable halfway through the century.

This is a circumstance where I honestly believe a commerce determination needs to exist in fair use law (that wasn't the basis of the decision, btw).

What happened here is that someone wrote a funny mashup based on a famous Dr. Seuss book with Star Trek jokes and sold it, as a book. Clearly there's transformative value here. The jokes look funny. But absent the original properies, there's no commercial value to this thing, so without Seuss and Roddenberry this book wouldn't exist anyway.

I think it would be a much happier world if we could trade transformative jokes and memes on the internet with impunity, but still agree that there's a bright line between that and trying to trade on someone else's idea.

Right now we end up on one side or the other: either we have to agree that sometimes good stuff needs to be banned entirely (imagine a world without Baby Yoda memes!) or we have to allow someone else to come along and "transform" our revenue sources for their own benefit (faceless corporations steal ideas just as often as they have them stolen!).

> I think it would be a much happier world if we could trade transformative jokes and memes on the internet with impunity, but still agree that there's a bright line between that and trying to trade on someone else's idea.

Isn't that the status quo? If you make a "Oh, the places you'll boldly go!" joke on HN, the Geisel estate won't come after you - or if they do, your post will be taken down after almost everyone who was going to read it has read it.

If a million people make a million "Oh, the places you'll boldly go!" jokes on social media, maybe they'll come after the 10 most popular. If so, the world can live with the other 990,000. More likely though, they'll come after the 10 guys , the 10 guys selling T-shirts with the meme, who you already agree are fair game.

It's not, because infringing-but-non-commercial[1] stuff gets taken down all the time by overzealous IP owners. The Baby Yoda thing wasn't entirely a joke, really. Disney in particular is extraordinarily strict, and there are lots of places on the internet you can't post a joke with an image of Baby Yoda.

[1] Or at most minimally commercial, like monentized youtube videos.

"The effect of the use upon the potential market." Is one of the four factors for fair use. If this wasn't a product being sold, competing with the original books the fair use determination probably would have been in their favor, and it is unlikely any lawsuit would be filed

But that standard is too strict. I mean, this specific book isn't a replacement for Dr. Seuss. No one is going to buy this for their kids (or new graduates) who don't already know the Seuss book. And obviously no one is going to consume this instead of Picard season 2.

It's definitely not competing with the original. But it's trading on the originals, which is clearly sort of unfair. So the court wants to find against them. But the only tools in the box are these clumsy arguments about "transformation" that would seem to apply equally to this thing if it wasn't commercial. But if it wasn't a commercial product, it wouldn't have seemed unfair!

Basically, the law just needs a clearer standard here for what it clearly wants to do.

But absent the original properties, there's no commercial value to this thing, so without Seuss and Roddenberry this book wouldn't exist anyway.

Exactly. The value is in the original properties. As an original work with new characters, it would flop.

Corruption or influence from local industry isn't supposed to affect the decisions of federal judges, but it's hard to not notice the trends. Everybody knows that the place to file patent infringement suits is East Texas, and the place to file copyright infringement cases is San Francisco, because that's the place where you are most likely to win.

> the place to file copyright infringement cases is San Francisco, because that’s the place where you are most likely to win.

I dunno, Oracle kept losing against Google in the case they in the Northern District of California (the district encompassing San Francisco), and kept having the get the Federal Circuit (in Washington, D.C.) to revive the case for them.

If you mean to insinuate something about the court that actually ruled here (the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit), you don’t actually have to file in San Francisco, or even its judicial district, for that court to be in the appellate chain (the case here was filed in the Southern District of California), because the Ninth Circuit is the appeals court for normal cases (but not cases that ever had patent claims, which go to the Federal Circuit) for a wide area [0]. And it would be silly, because (1) I don’t see any evidence that the Ninth is particularly copyright maximalist compared to other circuits, and (2) to the extent that it has taken a hard position on copyright claims in certain cases, its often been portrayed as hostile to the music and film industry that is so powerful in the state in so doing. [1]

[0] https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/content/view.php?pk_id=00000001...

[1] e.g., https://www.forbes.com/sites/schuylermoore/2019/11/12/the-ni...

All I can say is -- where can I find a copy. Both the Star Trek one, and the Dr. Juice one.

Came here to ask the same. Quick search just brought up this news.

Big thumbs up to the reporter for the “Victory is life” DS9 reference.

Seems like the correct ruling given the law. Maybe the law should be changed, but that’s a different issue.

No one would give a crap about this if it didn’t mashup two extremely IPs. Should people be allowed to freely cash-in on existing IP? Maybe! Can they today? Not really no.

I quite like many of the Sherlock Holmes remakes that exist. I’d love to see IP enter the public domain far far sooner. Seuss and OG Star Trek should almost definitely be public domain by now IMHO.

I'm no friend of copyright, but I've got to agree that this seems like the correct decision. The real problem is insane copyright terms making our cultural commons owned by private parties indefinitely. Twenty years (like patents) should be more than enough, especially as works under copyright protections are generally easier to bring to market.

I’d go for something a little more tiered. First Harry Potter book came out in 1997. Do I think publishers or printing press companies should be allowed to sell Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone without giving Rowling money? No I do not.

But I wouldn’t extend that past 50 years. And I might set compulsory licensing of some kind. Particularly for redistribution of existing work. I think some type of gradient between 20 to 50 or 30 to 50 makes sense.

I also like the idea of having copyright expire after 10 years but require an increasing annual fee to extend. This would allow abandoned IP to recirculate but still give creators control over their work if it’s worth their time and money. I’d make the fee growth non-linear so that very few things are worth extending beyond 20 or 30 years. It’s a variant of “use it or lose it”.

An idea I've always liked is a perpetually extendable copyright with rapidly escalating fees.

E.g....

First 10 years are free

The next 10 years cost $50 - Basically just enough to make it worth the time to process...basically a bozo filter for abandoned works)

Years 21-30 cost $5,000. - Starting to cost real money, but not overly onerous to anything in active commerce.

Years 31-40 cost $50,000

Years 41-50 cost $500,000 - Worth it only for highly lucrative works

Years 51-60 cost $5,000,000 - You've got to really want it

After that keep adding on zeros, I guess. I haven't really thought about the exact numbers.

I personally have no problem with Disney keeping all rights to Mickey Mouse in perpetum if they write a billion dollar check every year for the privilege.

Amazon paid 250 million dollars for the rights to Tolkien's Silmarillion.

This proposed scheme will simply lock away most of IP (especially IP with any cultural significance) in the vaults of a few conglomerates.

> This proposed scheme will simply lock away most of IP (especially IP with any cultural significance) in the vaults of a few conglomerates.

The difference being that right now, most IP (regardless of significance) is already being locked up in this way, the conglomerates don't have to pay or take any overt action to keep them locked up, and orphan works are lost when all copies degrade before the lockup period expires (early film, in particular).

The only way to fix it is to reduce copyright terms to a sane number of years. Any monetary schemes don't really work.

The above proposal is compatible with this goal, since it reduces the default copyright term, and adds optional paid extensions on a sliding scale. As compromises go, it's pretty decent.

I few other wrinkles I'd suggest to reduce friction: a copyright registry is being reintroduced[0] here, and this registry must be made public just like patents and trademarks. Registrations and extensions should also be filed a year before expiration (no fair to create a derivative work based on something that is scheduled for expiration only to have the rug pulled out from under you). This gives the creator plenty of time to register a work after publication, minimizing the burden on copyright owners (currently copyright is granted with no notice or registration required).

[0] Okay, not really, a copyright registry still exists today, but given it is optional and only affects the amount of damages you can collect from violations and absence from the registry isn't an affirmative defense, it isn't really comparable to the kind of registry that is needed to make such a scheme work. Nor is it comparable to the functions of the registry as it existed before copyright was made automatic.

What you're saying is too logical. It'd never fly, sadly.

Those who want "intellectual property" to be treated like physical goods should be alright with it being taxed that way too. The social contract should be mutually beneficial, but right now copyright holders get to hold culture hostage and starve the public domain with egregiously long terms.

Something like that would be great. That scale actually feels pretty good.

I agree with most of your comment, but want to point out that you're falling victim to the framing set by the IP maximalists:

freely cash-in on existing IP

I would reword this as "freely remix the culture that suffuses their minds and experiences"

"‘violent, sexual, sophisticated adult entertainment’ of Star Trek"

Wait, what though? Sophisticated debataly, but Star Trek is not particular violent or sexual, is it?

Compared to a children's book it is both, but compared to a lot of other TV-series with similar audiences, not at all.

As the context is a bit unclear, I don't thing there's a straight cut answer here, but perhaps it's not unreasonable to think it's in comparison to the other literary work involved in the suit. With that other work being a essentially children's book, Star Trek - in comparison - is all those things.

How could "To Boldly Go" not be considered a transfomative work?

Well, I guess this answers that question:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=157584601197117...

Reminds me of the lawsuit brought against South Park by Brownmark Films over the recreation of their infamous video, also done in a faithful “side by side” manner. Interesting that the courts decided the opposite in that case.

'parody' vs 'just a mix' will be a really important distinction in the next few years as people use generative AI models to 'auto cross' media, and claim that they have created something new / are in fair use territory

I suspect this is an unanswered question in the case law, but absolutely not my area

> ... McKeown, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote.

> Sammartino is a George W. Bush appointee. U.S. Circuit Judges N. Randy Smith, also a Bush appointee, and Barack Obama appointee Jacqueline Nguyen joined McKeown’s opinion.

It makes me sad that the judiciary has become so politicized that most news outlets point out which president appointed a particular judge. The proliferation of this feels like a fairly recent development, but maybe I'm just biased.

Amazing demonstration of how intermable copy right terms have enabled asinine rent seeking behavior.

Robot Chicken should call their bluff.

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