Judge Bans Book: Kills Off 60 Year Old Copy-Cat Caulfield

I don't know enough about copyright to comment one way or another on the ruling, but this statement is incorrect:

Can anyone imagine the originalists on the supreme court urging us back to the 14 year copyright terms that served America well for 200+ years?

An "originalist" would not reinstate a 14-year copyright term. The Constitution empowers Congress:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

An originalist, therefore, would defer to Congress's judgment on the length of copyright term

This seems like a terrible, free-speech-violating ruling even if commerce is involved.

I don't see why this book would be stopped when an "unauthorized" "sequel" to Gone with the Wind was permitted a few years ago.

And I don't get the cult of Salinger either.

thanks Joe for this article on court update. From my brush with law school, I'd say the case will likely be decided not in this particular court, but in appeals court. Pretty certain of that. The Swedish author who has self-published the book in Swedish but not made a lot of money at it, also recently published it in UK, where it is said to be what they call an anemic sell-through.

--There are underlying issues. The author seeks US distribution of the UK book as I understand it, as translation cost have already been paid by UK, to try to earn back his advance the UK publisher gave him (the book has not earned back apparently as of last checking on)

...and for the UK publishers covet US distribution because they might then get to cover their costs of advance money and translation, and printing and editor salary and warehouse storage costs, etc... at this point there is apparently still wide berth for this particular book paying for itself or going down the toidy.

Incidentally, I think any person in the US can prob buy the book on Amazon UK, that is if the British publisher did its job right. So, it is not unavailible to US readers. Just would cost about $5 to ship it snail mail from UK

Mr. Colting the Swedish author put in print an assertion that is weighed heavily in the courts here. Although he now claims his book is a parody, and thereby acceptible under fair use clause in intellectual property laws, he apparently published in his press kit prominently that it was a "sequel to Catcher in the Rye."

The case and its details have been highjacked by the gossip media which has slavered about whether the reclusive author of Catcher, JD Salinger, will make an unheard of appearance-- in court. That's beside the point entirely.

The issue/ present court decision is not one of freedom of speech being barred by the government. It's about whether the Swedish author's genre he claims to have written in originally, and his intention in fashioning his book whichever way he did, and his publicity press releases he wrote himself touting his book, actually once weighed, clearly come under fair use ... or not.

There are other legal issues as well.

Stay tuned for the appelate court which will review every input, every script of the lower court, every angle and legal precedent and then uphold or overturn the lower court decision.

thanks again Joe; I like seeing articles on TMV about creative life, its ins and outs that are in fashion or not.

dr.e

Dear George, just a two cents' worth comment to your comment. You're right, there was a dustup re Gone with The Wind with Margaret Mitchell's estate people and the author of "the Wind Done Gone" which was said from the get-go to be a parodic critique of the time period et al in Mitchell's book... and the Mitchell estate and the author of " wind done gone' settled after an appelate court found for 'fair use' and HM pub'd the book... also to 'disappointing sales', as they say in the prof.

Not sure what captures editors to buy--often at way overpriced advances-- pseudo-sequels, but it seems even in the Theodore Guisel (sp?) and Ian Fleming genres (where other ghost writers continue to write in each series... Dr. Seuss and James Bond... long after original author died) have adequate, but so-so sales. Something about a spark in time, over a certain writer's hand, that can be mimicked, but something about being the original-- and in the time of the times-- lightning strikes that can rarely be duplicated , often not even close.

'cult of salinger' good way to put it. I dont understand the things that often seem to rise from the bowels of the 'far east' either...lol. But, I do know that when academics in colleges and highschools, across the board nearly, take up a novel and begin to teach it every year, year in and year out, as an appointed (by whom I am not sure) "classic..." that a book can take on a life far far apart from that of the author who wrote it.

I know many young people from the lit classes in highschools I visit who know Holden Caufield inside out and find his milleau fascinating, esp if they themselves have or know of disaffected parents, teachers who prey on students like vampires for energy and teachers who come on to students in secret, etc. It just depends on what layer of 'teen and young adult' one is viewing... Like us, they are not monolithic in their interests.

I've friends who write YA (Young Adult novels) and the genre is wide open for protagonists who want to be priests, to those who are drug addicts, to heros and heroines who drag around the angst that comes over most of us at that age-- and then weirdly recycles again later... several times over a life time.

I hope that last made you smile George.

Thanks for reading.

dr.e

Thanks for writing, Dr E.