Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group, Inc.

150 F.3d 132 (2d Cir. 1998)

DOCTRINE
the fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ...,
scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work
in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for
nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

FACTS

Plaintiff Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. owned the copyrights for the entire Seinfeld television series.
Defendants, author Beth B. Golub and publisher Carol Publishing Group, Inc., released a book titled The
Seinfeld Aptitude Test (The SAT), a 132-page book that contained 643 trivia questions and answers about the
characters and events in Seinfeld. The book drew from eighty-four of the eighty-six Seinfeld episodes
broadcast up to that time and included direct quotes. The district court ruled against defendants, finding that
this was not fair use. Defendants appealed.

ISSUE
Whether or not defendants use of copyright protected aspects of a television series to create a trivia book for
fans of the series constituted fair use

HELD

Though there are numerous competing considerations which make this decision a difficult one, the Court is
persuaded that, on balance, SAT does not represent a fair use of Seinfeld. Only one of the four statutory
factors favors defendant, and then, only by a generous understanding of what it means for a work to be
"transformative." Plaintiff prevails with respect to each of the remaining three factors: Seinfeld is a work of
fiction, and such works are accorded special status in copyright law; SAT draws upon "essential" elements
of Seinfeld, and it draws upon little else; and, most importantly, SAT occupies a market for derivatives which
plaintiff whatever it decides must properly be left to control. In short, SAT does not make fair use
of Seinfeld, and plaintiff must accordingly be granted summary judgment on its claim of copyright
infringement.

The Second Circuit held that defendants unauthorized use of the copyright protected aspects of the television
series was not fair use. The court determined that defendants use was commercial and, more
importantly, non-transformative because The SAT did not provide commentary or analysis about
Seinfeld or act as a research tool, but instead Seinfeld to entertain Seinfeld viewers. The court then
noted that defendants creation of 643 questions based on the television series was more than was necessary
to advance defendants purported commentary of the show, further suggesting that the books purpose was
entertainment. Turning to the effect on the potential market, the court found that although Castle Rock had
shown little interest in exploiting the market for Seinfeld-related books, the defendants work substituted for
the derivative market for such books, and the court noted that copyright law must respect creative and
economic choice of plaintiffs not to exploit a particular market.