Opinion ID: 814395
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Peace Sign Images

Text: The first example in Mr. Blehm’s exhibit juxtaposes a Penman and Jake image standing and displaying the peace sign. Because we must separate unprotected ideas from expression, our analysis does not consider that both drawings share the idea of a cartoon figure making a common hand gesture. But we do consider whether the Jake image is substantially similar to Mr. Blehm’s expression of this idea. Mr. Blehm urges us to find certain similarities between the images. He notes that both have round heads. See Aplt. Br. at 22. But Mr. Blehm has no copyright protection in general human features. Further, the figures’ heads are not similarly round. Jake’s head is more oval and somewhat misshapen, whereas the Penman’s head is circular and uniform. Mr. Blehm suggests that the figures have similar proportions, such as the size of the figures’ heads, arms, legs, and feet compared with their bodies. A close review of the figures, however, yields the opposite conclusion. Jake’s head is very large compared with the body, while the Penman’s head is relatively proportional. The Penman’s arms and legs are long and disproportionate to its truncated torso. Jake, on the other hand, has more proportional limbs compared with his torso. The figures’ feet are distinctly -21- different: the Penman’s are thick, long, and roll-shaped, but Jake’s are shorter and triangular. Nevertheless, there are some similarities between the Penman and Jake. Both have black-line bodies, four fingers, and large half-moon smiles, and their feet are pointed outward. But even these similarities have important differences, or are not protectable expression. For example, Jake’s fingers appear stubbier. The choice to display the figures’ feet outward also naturally flows from the common idea of drawing a two-dimensional stick figure and is thus unprotected. The figures’ smiles thus seem to be the crux of this litigation. The Penman and Jake both face the viewer with disproportionately large half-moon smiles. A smile can be drawn in various ways. Here, they share a crescent shape, but the idea of a crescentshaped smile is unprotected. Rather, the expression of the smiles must be substantially similar and important to the overall work. The Penman’s smile is all white, as is Jake’s. The smiles on both figures take up a large portion of the head. But the Penman’s smile is rounded on the tips, whereas the tips of Jake’s smile are sharper angled. Jake’s smile, by virtue of the size of his head, is much larger compared with his body than is the Penman’s. And although both smiles are white, the Penman’s is set on an all-black head, making it appear different from Jake’s, which is the outline of a smile on a white head with black sunglasses. Indeed, Mr. Blehm’s decision to omit eyes and other facial features on the Penman makes the figure susceptible to an interpretation that the Penman is not smiling at all. -22- One interpretation is that the white space on the head is not a smile, but is the Penman’s face with no features. The black above the half-moon shape can be perceived as hair swooping down over the Penman’s forehead. Thus, the Penman’s lack of facial features make it susceptible to different interpretations.8 The Jake figure is not susceptible to similar confusion. Any similarity between smiles also is insubstantial in light of other differences between the figures. Jake’s head is attached to the body, and his head is white and has black sunglasses. The Penman’s head is detached and is black with no eyes. Jake sports a beret, and his whole figure is displayed on a color background, whereas the Penman has no headwear and is portrayed against a plain white background. The Jake image’s arms are positioned differently from the Penman, with Jake’s left arm curved, rather than sharp and angular. Mr. Blehm also chose a unique feature for the Penman’s peace-sign expression—white space in the figure’s hand—that the Jake image does not share. We conclude that no reasonable juror could determine that the Jake figure is substantially similar to the protected, expressive choices Mr. Blehm used for the Penman figure. 8 Our analysis of this Penman drawing does not imply that all Penmen are susceptible to confusion over the smile. -23-