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Star Trek/Dr. Seuss Mash-Up Book ‘Oh The Places You’ll Boldy Go’ Is Not Protected As ‘Parody’

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The Star Trek/Dr. Seuss mash-up book Oh The Places You’ll Boldy Go is not protected by copyright law as “parody.”

According to The New York Times: An unauthorized mash-up of the “Star Trek” and Dr. Seuss universes, a book titled “Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!”, is not protected from a copyright infringement claim, a federal appeals court ruled last week. The ruling by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concerned a Kickstarter-backed book, created by ComicMix, that inserted “Star Trek” characters into the whimsical pastel world that Dr. Seuss created for the 1990 children’s classic “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” The ComicMix book, a primer on “Star Trek” characters and lore, replicated broad swaths of the Dr. Seuss original, including small details of the illustrations, the judges said.

Lawyers for ComicMix argued that the publication was permissible under fair use, a legal defense that grants satirists, aggregators and remixers some leeway under certain circumstances. But in overturning a lower-court ruling, the judges declared that the publication failed to meet the required standards for fair use, partly because it was not a parody or otherwise transformative.

 

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