Blog Post 8-Jennifer Schrauth

I was actually mildly surprised by a lot of these cases. Like Robert , I thought it was strange that the news program was deemed not in fair use for airing a segment of the Chaplin film; it seemed like such a small percentage and it was for the purpose of supplementing a news story, and since the news is generally thought to be a component of educating the public, it seems like it wouldn't be overly harmful. Also, I don't think the news profited financially from airing that film segment. I was also a little surprised by the case in which Salinger successfully sued another author for creating a character modeled after Holden Caulfield. Obviously Holden is a very famous character, and Catcher in the Rye is a classic book; I don't know how smart or original it is to model a character after one so well known, but that being said, I think there are so many characters that have been created and so many volumes of fiction that have been published that it is difficult to claim full intellectual property for a single character or character type. Though Holden is an iconic character, he wasn't an entirely new character; Salinger didn't create a new "type" of character, he just put an interesting spin on one. I think the author he sued should be called unoriginal and unimaginative, but not a copyright infringer.

As an author, I certainly want to think that I'm coming up with something new and interesting when I write, and to think that someone else would rip off that darling creation of mine and call it their own is certainly infuriating, especially knowing that people do it and get away with it all the time. However, at some point stuff does enter into the common sphere, and sometimes copyright laws go too far, in my opinion, from preventing people from using those things. Especially when thinking of writing for publication, authors are so limited in the way they can use brand names, song lyrics, refer to other people's work, quote other people's work, draw from other people's work, etc., even if it overtly being attributed to that original author. This I think less protects the original author or creator and more prevents others from authoring what those original works inspire.