From Publishers Weekly:

Batts’s ruling is the first time that the Second Circuit has explicitly ruled that a single character from a single work is copyrightable. Colting’s attorneys argued that past cases have extended copyright to characters that are more clearly delineated—whether as recurring characters or via illustration or through extension into another medium, such as television. Batts, however, said that did not mean that single characters from single works could not be copyrighted, and ruled that Caulfield, though appearing in only one book, was sufficiently delineated.

It’s important to note that, while he appeared in only one book, Holden appeared in several short stories, at least one of which was published—”I’m Crazy” (Colliers magazine, 1945). Caulfield family members also appeared in “Last Day of the Last Furlough” (Saturday Evening Post, 1944). I would hope this is not lost in the case.

The following paragraph is far more amusing. The defense argued that scholarship need not be accomplished to any effective degree, but that the litmus test should be merely that a “perceptible attempt” was made:

On the question of fair use, Batts seemed thoroughly unmoved by defendants’ argument that their client’s use of Holden Caulfield as a character, referred to as ”Mr. C.” in the book, is criticism or commentary. Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz attorney Ned Rosenthal argued that whether or not Colting was successful in his attempt to use the Caulfield character or events from the Catcher in the Rye for commentary was not at issue, as long as the attempt to do so was perceptible. He argued that Batts should allow publication to go forward and require the plaintiffs to prove harm at trial. Before adjourning for lunch, however, Batts said that the commentary in 60 Years Later was ”not perceptible at all”…

What a circus.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 9:50 pm and is filed under *William's Posts, News, The Salinger Case. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.