critique of 9th Circuit's treatment of copyright parody in Dr. Seuss case

     I am a third year student at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where my primary area of interest is Internet and copyright law. My recently published law review note, The Cat in the Hat's Latest Bad Trick: The Ninth Circuit's Narrowing of the Parody Defense to Copyright Infringement in Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. Penguin Books USA, Inc., 20 Cardozo L. Rev. 287 (1998), may be of interest to some of you. It is available for your review at:

   http://www.yu.edu/cardozo/journals/cardlrev/vogel.pdf

     The note questions whether the Ninth Circuit's decision in Dr. Seuss is consistent with the broad permissibility of parodic copying set forth by the Supreme Court's landmark parody decision, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. It then examines the parody/satire dichotomy that was discussed in Campbell and raised to dispositive importance in Dr. Seuss. Ultimately, the note proposes that, in certain circumstances, even satiric works should be accorded fair use status and thus immunized from copyright infringement liability.

     I would, of course, welcome any comments anyone may have on the note.

Thanks,

Jason Vogel
<jasonvogel[_at_]ibm.net> Received on Tue Feb 23 1999 - 05:02:29 GMT