Opinion ID: 4644700
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Purpose and Character of Boldly Weigh

Text: Against Fair Use The first statutory factor examines “the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.” 17 U.S.C. § 107(1). This factor has taken on a heightened significance because it influences the lens through which we consider two other fair use factors. The third factor—the amount and substantiality of use—“will harken back” to the first factor. See Campbell, 510 U.S. at 586. And the fourth factor, relating to market harm, is influenced by whether the 12 DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES V. COMICMIX LLC commercial use was transformative. See Monge, 688 F.3d at 1181. Although a commercial use is no longer considered presumptively unfair, the nature of the work remains “one element of the first factor enquiry.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 584–85. As explained below, Boldly is not transformative, and its indisputably commercial use of Go! counsels against fair use. See Penguin Books, 109 F.3d at 1401 (commerciality “further cuts against the fair use defense” when there is “no effort to create a transformative work”). The term “transformative” does not appear in § 107, yet it permeates copyright analysis because in Campbell, the Court interpreted the “central purpose” of the first-factor inquiry as determining “whether and to what extent the new work is ‘transformative.’” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579. Transformative use of the original work can tip the first factor in favor of fair use. A transformative work “adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message.” Id. On the other hand, a work that “merely supersedes the objects of the original creation” is not transformative. Id. (quotation marks omitted). While the analysis of the first fair use factor “may be guided by the examples given in the preamble to § 107,” i.e., criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research, id. at 578–79, not even these works compel “a per se finding of fair use,” Monge, 688 F.3d at 1173. Thus, we do not ask whether mash-ups can be fair use—they can be—but whether Boldly is a transformative work. The purpose and character of a parody fits squarely into preamble examples—particularly “criticism” and DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES V. COMICMIX LLC 13 “comment”—and has “an obvious claim” to transformative use. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579. By definition, a parody must “use some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works.” Id. at 580. The need “to mimic an original to make its point” is the essence of parody. Id. at 580–81; see Penguin Books, 109 F.3d at 1400 (a parody must “conjure up” at least a part of “the object of [the] parody”). In short, a parody is a spoof, send-up, caricature, or comment on another work. A great example of a parody is the book The Wind Done Gone, which parrots portions of Gone with the Wind to offer a critical take on the book. See Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co., 268 F.3d 1257, 1270–71 (11th Cir. 2001) (“It is hard to imagine” how a parody that attempts to “strip the romanticism” of slavery in Gone with the Wind can be made “without depending heavily upon copyrighted elements of that book.”). On the other hand, if the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another’s work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 580. Boldly is not a parody. ComicMix does not seriously contend that Boldly critiques or comments on Go!. Rather, it claims Boldly is a parody because it situated the “violent, sexual, sophisticated adult entertainment” of Star Trek “in the context of [Dr. Seuss]” to create a “funny” book. We considered and rejected this very claim in an appeal 14 DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES V. COMICMIX LLC involving another well-known book by Dr. Seuss—The Cat in the Hat (Cat). The retelling of the O.J. Simpson double murder trial in the world of Cat—in a book titled The Cat NOT in the Hat! A Parody by Dr. Juice (Not)—was not a parody of Cat. Penguin Books, 109 F.3d at 1396, 1401. We explained that “broadly mimic[king] Dr. Seuss’[s] characteristic style” is not the same as “hold[ing] his style up to ridicule,” and that without a critique of Cat, all Not did was “simply retell the Simpson tale” using the expressive elements of Cat “to get attention or maybe even to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh.” Id. at 1401 (quotation marks and citation omitted). Boldly’s claim to a parody fares no better. Although elements of Go! are featured prominently in Boldly, the juxtapositions of Go! and Star Trek elements do not “hold [Seussian] style” up to ridicule. Id. From the project’s inception, ComicMix wanted Boldly to be a Star Trek primer that “evoke[s]” rather than “ridicule[s]” Go!. Similarly, Boldly’s use of the other Seuss works does not conjure up a critique of Go!. Boldly’s replacement of Grinch’s “‘Whos from Who-ville’ with the diverse crew and Kirk’s ‘lovers of every hue,’” the redrawing of “a Sneetches machine to signify the Enterprise transporter,” and the rendering of “the ‘lonely games’ played in Go!” as a “contemplative chess match between two Spocks” were all used to tell the story of the Enterprise crew’s adventures, not to make a point about Go!. Lacking “critical bearing on the substance or style of” Go!, Boldly cannot be characterized as a parody. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 580. We also reject as “completely unconvincing” ComicMix’s “post-hoc characterization of the work” as criticizing the theme of banal narcissism in Go!. Penguin Books, 109 F.3d at 1403; see also Castle Rock Ent., Inc. v. DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES V. COMICMIX LLC 15 Carol Publ’g Grp., Inc., 150 F.3d 132, 142 (2d Cir. 1998) (ignoring similar “post hoc rationalizations”). The effort to treat Boldly as lampooning Go! or mocking the purported self-importance of its characters falls flat. Nor is Boldly otherwise transformative. ComicMix argues that even if Boldly is not a parody, Boldly is transformative because it replaced Seuss characters and other elements with Star Trek material. Again, the Cat case repudiates ComicMix’s position. There, efforts to leverage Dr. Seuss’s characters without having a new purpose or giving Dr. Seuss’s works new meaning similarly fell short of being transformative. The copyists “merely use[d]” what Dr. Seuss had already created—e.g., “the Cat’s stove-pipe hat, the narrator (“Dr. Juice”), and the title (The Cat NOT in the Hat!)”—and overlaid a plot about the O.J. Simpson murder trial without altering Cat “with ‘new expression, meaning or message.’” Penguin Books, 109 F.3d at 1401 (quoting Campbell, 510 U.S. at 578). For the same reasons, ComicMix’s efforts to add Star Trek material on top of what it meticulously copied from Go! fail to be transformative. Notably, Boldly lacks the benchmarks of transformative use. These telltale signs of transformative use are derived from the considerations laid out in Campbell, our north star, and Seltzer v. Green Day, Inc. from our circuit: (1) “further purpose or different character” in the defendant’s work, i.e., “the creation of new information, new aesthetic, new insights and understanding”; (2) “new expression, meaning, or message” in the original work, i.e., the addition of “value to the original”; and (3) the use of quoted matter as “raw material,” instead of repackaging it and “merely supersed[ing] the objects of the original creation.” See Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579; Seltzer v. Green Day, Inc., 725 F.3d 1170, 1176 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting Leval, Toward a 16 DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES V. COMICMIX LLC Fair Use Standard, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1105, 1111 (1990)). Boldly possesses none of these qualities; it merely repackaged Go!. Boldly’s claim to transformative use rests on the fact that it has “extensive new content.” But the addition of new expression to an existing work is not a get-out-of-jail-free card that renders the use of the original transformative. The new expression must be accompanied by the benchmarks of transformative use. See, e.g., Seltzer, 725 F.3d at 1177–78; Cariou v. Prince, 714 F.3d 694, 706 (2d Cir. 2013); Blanch v. Koons, 467 F.3d 244, 251–52 (2d Cir. 2006). Instead of possessing a further purpose or different character, Boldly paralleled Go!’s purpose. In propounding the same message as Go, Boldly used expression from Go! to “keep to [Go!’s] sentiment.” Absent new purpose or character, merely recontextualizing the original expression by “plucking the most visually arresting excerpt[s]” of the copyrighted work is not transformative. L.A. News Serv. v. CBS Broad., Inc., 305 F.3d 924, 938–39 (9th Cir. 2002). By contrast, reconstituting copyrighted expression was for a new, transformative purpose when a “seven-second clip of Ed Sullivan’s introduction of the [band] Four Seasons on The Ed Sullivan Show” was used in the musical Jersey Boys, not to introduce the band’s performance, but to serve “as a biographical anchor” about the band. SOFA Ent., Inc. v. Dodger Prods., Inc., 709 F.3d 1273, 1276, 1278 (9th Cir. 2013). Boldly also does not alter Go! with new expression, meaning, or message. A “‘transformative work’ is one that alters the original work.” Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 508 F.3d 1146, 1164 (9th Cir. 2007) (quoting Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579). While Boldly may have altered Star Trek by sending Captain Kirk and his crew to a strange DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES V. COMICMIX LLC 17 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. Unsurprisingly, Boldly does not change Go!; as ComicMix readily admits, it could have used another primer, or even created an entirely original work. Go! was selected “to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh,” and not for a transformative purpose. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 580. Most telling is ComicMix’s repackaging of Go!’s illustrations. The Star Trek characters step into the shoes of Seussian characters in a Seussian world that is otherwise unchanged. ComicMix captured the placements and poses of the characters, as well as every red hatch mark arching over the handholding characters in Grinch’s iconic finale scene, then plugged in the Star Trek characters. (The Seuss images always appear to the left of the Boldly! images juxtaposed in this opinion.) ComicMix copied the exact composition of the famous “waiting place” in Go!, down to the placements of the couch and the fishing spot. To this, ComicMix added Star Trek characters who line up, sit on the couch, and fish exactly like the waiting place visitors they replaced. Go! continues to carry the same expression, meaning, or message: as the 18 DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES V. COMICMIX LLC Boldly text makes clear, the image conveys the sense of being stuck, with “time moving fast in the wink of an eye.” ComicMix also copied a scene in Sneetches, 4 down to the exact shape of the sandy hills in the background and the placement of footprints that collide in the middle of the page. Seussian characters were replaced with Spocks playing chess, making sure they “ha[d] similar poses” as the original, but all ComicMix really added was “the background of a weird basketball court.” ComicMix likewise repackaged Go!’s text. Instead of using the Go! story as a starting point for a different artistic or aesthetic expression, Hauman created a side-by-side comparison of the Go! and Boldly texts in order “to try to match the structure of Go!.” This copying did not result in the Go! story taking on a new expression, meaning, or 4 The illustration comes from a story called The Zax. DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES V. COMICMIX LLC 19 message. Because Boldly “left the inherent character of the [book] unchanged,” it was not a transformative use of Go!. Monge, 688 F.3d at 1176. 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 first factor weighs definitively against fair use.