Opinion ID: 756424
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Purpose/Character of Use

Text: 49 The first fair use factor to consider is the purpose and character of the [allegedly infringing] use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes. 17 U.S.C. § 107(1). That The SAT 's use is commercial, at most, tends to weigh against a finding of fair use. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 585, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quotation marks omitted); Texaco, 60 F.3d at 921. But we do not make too much of this point. As noted in Campbell, nearly all of the illustrative uses listed in the preamble paragraph of § 107, including news reporting, comment, criticism, teaching, scholarship, and research ... are generally conducted for profit in this country, 510 U.S. at 584, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quotation marks omitted), and no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money, id. (quoting 3 Boswell's Life of Johnson 19 (G. Hill ed.1934)). We therefore do not give much weight to the fact that the secondary use was for commercial gain. 50 The more critical inquiry under the first factor and in fair use analysis generally is whether the allegedly infringing work merely supersedes the original work or instead adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new ... meaning [ ] or message, in other words whether and to what extent the new work is 'transformative.'  Id. at 579, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quoting Leval at 1111). If the secondary use adds value to the original--if [copyrightable expression in the original work] is used as raw material, transformed in the creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings--this is the very type of activity that the fair use doctrine intends to protect for the enrichment of society. Leval at 1111. In short, the goal of copyright, to promote science and the arts, is generally furthered by the creation of transformative works. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579, 114 S.Ct. 1164. 51 Defendants claim two primary transformative qualities of The SAT. First, as noted by the district court, a text testing one's knowledge of Joyce's Ulysses, or Shakespeare's Hamlet, would qualify as 'criticism, comment, scholarship, or research,' or such. The same must be said, then, of a text testing one's knowledge of Castle Rock's Seinfeld. Castle Rock, 955 F.Supp. at 268 (citing Twin Peaks, 996 F.2d at 1374 (A comment is as eligible for fair use protection when it concerns 'Masterpiece Theater' and appears in the New York Review of Books as when it concerns 'As the World Turns' and appears in Soap Opera Digest.)). In other words, the fact that the subject matter of the quiz is plebeian, banal, or ordinary stuff does not alter the fair use analysis. Criticism, comment, scholarship, research, and other potential fair uses are no less protectable because their subject is the ordinary. 52 Second, defendants style The SAT as a work decod[ing] the obsession with ... and mystique that surround[s] 'Seinfeld,'  by critically restructur[ing] [Seinfeld 's mystique] into a system complete with varying levels of 'mastery' that relate the reader's control of the show's trivia to knowledge of and identification with their hero, Jerry Seinfeld. Citing one of their own experts for the proposition that [t]he television environment cannot speak for itself but must be spoken for and about, defendants argue that The SAT is a quintessential example of critical text of the TV environment .... expos[ing] all of the show's nothingness to articulate its true motive forces and its social and moral dimensions. (Quotation marks omitted). Castle Rock dismisses these arguments as post hoc rationalizations, claiming that had defendants been half as creative in creating The SAT as were their lawyers in crafting these arguments about transformation, defendants might have a colorable fair use claim. 53 Any transformative purpose possessed by The SAT is slight to non-existent. We reject the argument that The SAT was created to educate Seinfeld viewers or to criticize, expose, or otherwise comment upon Seinfeld. The SAT 's purpose, as evidenced definitively by the statements of the book's creators and by the book itself, is to repackage Seinfeld to entertain Seinfeld viewers. The SAT 's back cover makes no mention of exposing Seinfeld to its readers, for example, as a pitiably vacuous reflection of a puerile and pervasive television culture, but rather urges SAT readers to open this book to satisfy [their] between-episode [Seinfeld ] cravings. Golub, The SAT 's author, described the trivia quiz book not as a commentary or a Seinfeld research tool, but as an effort to capture Seinfeld's flavor in quiz book fashion. Finally, even viewing The SAT in the light most favorable to defendants, we find scant reason to conclude that this trivia quiz book seeks to educate, criticize, parody, comment, report upon, or research Seinfeld, or otherwise serve a transformative purpose. 7 The book does not contain commentary or analysis about Seinfeld, nor does it suggest how The SAT can be used to research Seinfeld; rather, the book simply poses trivia questions. The SAT 's plain purpose, therefore, is not to expose Seinfeld 's nothingness, but to satiate Seinfeld fans' passion for the nothingness that Seinfeld has elevated into the realm of protectable creative expression. 54 Although a secondary work need not necessarily transform the original work's expression to have a transformative purpose, see, e.g., 4 Nimmer § 13.05[D], at 13-227-13-228 (discussing reproduction of entire works in judicial proceedings), the fact that The SAT so minimally alters Seinfeld 's original expression in this case is further evidence of The SAT 's lack of transformative purpose. To be sure, the act of testing trivia about a creative work, in question and answer form, involves some creative expression. While still minimal, it does require posing the questions and hiding the correct answer among three or four incorrect ones. 8 Also, dividing the trivia questions into increasing levels of difficulty is somewhat more original than arranging names in a telephone book in alphabetical order. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 362-63, 111 S.Ct. 1282. The SAT 's incorrect multiple choice answers are also original. However, the work as a whole, drawn directly from the Seinfeld episodes without substantial alteration, is far less transformative than other works we have held not to constitute fair use. See, e.g., Twin Peaks, 996 F.2d at 1378 (book about Twin Peaks television series that discusses show's popularity, characters, actors, plots, creator, music, and poses trivia questions about show held not to be fair use). 55 Finally, we note a potential source of confusion in our copyright jurisprudence over the use of the term transformative. A derivative work, over which a copyright owner has exclusive control, is defined as 56 a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. 57 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 106(2) (emphasis added). Although derivative works that are subject to the author's copyright transform an original work into a new mode of presentation, such works--unlike works of fair use--take expression for purposes that are not transformative. 9 In the instant case, since The SAT has transformed Seinfeld 's expression into trivia quiz book form with little, if any, transformative purpose, the first fair use factor weighs against defendants.