Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest in the wider distribution and use of creative works by allowing as a defense to copyright infringement claims certain limited uses that might otherwise be considered infringement. Unlike "fair dealing" rights that exist in most countries with a British legal history, the fair use right is a general exception that applies to all different kinds of uses with all types of works and turns on a flexible proportionality test that examines the purpose of the use, the amount used, and the impact on the market of the original work.
The idea–expression distinction or idea–expression dichotomy is a legal doctrine in the United States that limits the scope of copyright protection by differentiating an idea from the expression or manifestation of that idea.
A scène à faire is a scene in a book or film which is almost obligatory for a book or film in that genre. In the U.S. it also refers to a principle in copyright law in which certain elements of a creative work are held to be not protected when they are mandated by or customary to the genre.
Abie's Irish Rose is a popular comedy by Anne Nichols, which premiered in 1922. Initially a Broadway play, it has become familiar through repeated stage productions, films and radio programs. The basic premise involves an Irish Catholic girl and a young Jewish man who marry despite the objections of their families.
Steinberg v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., 663 F. Supp. 706 was a federal case in which artist Saul Steinberg sued various parties involved with producing and promoting the 1984 movie Moscow on the Hudson, claiming that a promotional poster for the movie infringed his copyright in a magazine cover, View of the World from 9th Avenue, he had created for The New Yorker.
Castle Rock Entertainment Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group, 150 F.3d 132, was a U.S. copyright infringement case involving the popular American sitcom Seinfeld. Some U.S. copyright law courses use the case to illustrate modern application of the fair use doctrine. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a lower court's summary judgment that the defendant had committed copyright infringement. The decision is noteworthy for classifying Seinfeld trivia not as unprotected facts, but as protectable expression. The court also rejected the defendant's fair use defense finding that any transformative purpose possessed in the derivative work was "slight to non-existent" under the Supreme Court ruling in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569 (1994).
In copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major copyrightable elements of a first, previously created original work. The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent in form from the first. The transformation, modification or adaptation of the work must be substantial and bear its author's personality sufficiently to be original and thus protected by copyright. Translations, cinematic adaptations and musical arrangements are common types of derivative works.
The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of their works, to create derivative works, and to perform or display their works publicly. These exclusive rights are subject to a time limit, and generally expire 70 years after the author's death or 95 years after publication. In the United States, works published before January 1, 1928, are in the public domain.
Substantial similarity, in US copyright law, is the standard used to determine whether a defendant has infringed the reproduction right of a copyright. The standard arises out of the recognition that the exclusive right to make copies of a work would be meaningless if copyright infringement were limited to making only exact and complete reproductions of a work. Many courts also use "substantial similarity" in place of "probative" or "striking similarity" to describe the level of similarity necessary to prove that copying has occurred. A number of tests have been devised by courts to determine substantial similarity. They may rely on expert or lay observation or both and may subjectively judge the feel of a work or critically analyze its elements.
The Cohens and Kellys is a 1926 American silent comedy film directed by Harry A. Pollard and starring Charles Murray, George Sidney, Kate Price, and Jason Robards Sr. The film is the first of the Cohens and Kellys film serials. The film is perhaps best known today as the subject of Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., a copyright infringement case, in which Judge Learned Hand articulated the doctrine that copyright protection does not cover the characteristics of stock characters in a story.
The Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison test (AFC) is a method of identifying substantial similarity for the purposes of applying copyright law. In particular, the AFC test is used to determine whether non-literal elements of a computer program have been copied by comparing the protectable elements of two programs. The AFC test was developed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1992 in its opinion for Computer Associates Int. Inc. v. Altai Inc. It has been widely adopted by United States courts and recognized by courts outside the United States as well.
In Canadian copyright law there are several Limitations to Copyright. These limitations define the scope of copyright protection by placing limits on ability of copyright holders to deny other users or creators the ability to employ the ideas, facts, and concepts underlying their protected expression.
RG Anand v. Delux Films, is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of India in the area of copyright law. The case deals with a copyright infringement suit against the movie New Delhi made by Mohan Sehgal in 1954. The plaintiff R.G. Anand, contended that it was modeled on the plot of a play Hum Hindustani written and produced by him. The judgment is remarkable for clarifying the concepts of idea-expression dichotomy and copyright infringement under the Indian copyright law.
Penguin Books Ltd. v. India Book Distributors and Others, was a decision of the Delhi High Court issued in 1984. Penguin Books Ltd. of England brought a suit for perpetual injunction against the respondents, India Book Distributors of New Delhi, to restrain them from infringing Penguin's territorial license in 23 books, the subject matter of the suit.
Copyright protection is available to the creators of a range of works including literary, musical, dramatic and artistic works. Recognition of fictional characters as works eligible for copyright protection has come about with the understanding that characters can be separated from the original works they were embodied in and acquire a new life by featuring in subsequent works.
Pearson Education Limited v Morgan Adzei is one of the novel Ghanaian cases that discusses the extent of application and protection under the Copyright Act of Ghana, Act 690. The primary focus of this case is on the works excluded from copyright eligibility under section 2 of the Copyright Act, Act 690.
DC Comics v. Mark Towle was a copyright case heard in the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit in September 2015. The case concerned defendant Mark Towle, who built and sold replicas of the Batmobile in his garage named 'Garage Gotham'. DC Comics initially filed a lawsuit, in May 2011, in the federal district court alleging causes of action for copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition arising out of Mark's manufacture and sale of replicas. The plaintiffs, DC Comics, claimed the infringement of their copyright as the replicas sold by Mark were similar to the ones that appeared in 1966 television show Batman and the 1989 film Batman. The issue discussed by the court was "whether a character in a comic book, television program or motion picture is entitled to copyright protection". The ninth circuit followed the precedents and came up with a three-part test to determine the protection given to such characters.
Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. was a 2014 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (755 F.3d 496.), in response to an appeal filed by the defendants against the 2013 ruling of the U.S. District Court for Northern district of Illinois (988 F. Supp. 2d 879). These decisions, by the District Court and the Court of the Seventh Circuit, clarified the validity of use of characters of Sherlock Holmes and his colleague Dr. John Watson, and the story elements, in unlicensed works. Further, the scope of using characters, existing in public domain, was also clarified.
Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607, is one of the first legal cases applying copyright law to video games, barring sales of the game K.C. Munchkin! for its similarities to Pac-Man. Atari had licensed the commercially successful arcade game Pac-Man from Namco and Midway, to produce a version for their Atari 2600 console. Around the same time, Philips created Munchkin as a similar maze-chase game, leading Atari to sue them for copyright infringement.
