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Additional Perspective on Dr. Seuss/Star Trek Ruling

By Scott Graham
February 01, 2021

The copyright dispute over a Dr. Seuss/Star Trek mashup divided industries and intellectual property scholars, but it didn't trouble the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit at all. Instead, the court resoundingly rejected the fair use defense of the writers and publisher who placed Star Trek characters in the setting of Dr. Seuss's best-selling book Oh, the Places You'll Go!  and called it Oh, the Places You'll Boldly Go!

Ninth Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown acknowledged in Dr. Seuss Enterprises L.P. v. ComicMix LLC, 983 F.3d 443 (2020) that "fair use analysis can be elusive to the point of 'approaching the metaphysics of the law.'" But, she wrote, "Not so in this case."

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