Faulkner Estate Keeps Suing: Sues Washington Post Over Ad That Quoted One Sentence
from the new-righthaven? dept
It appears that Faulkner Literary Rights -- the operation set up by the estate of William Faulkner to oversee his copyrights -- has really decided to go all in with the crazy lawsuits. Last week, we wrote about it suing Sony Pictures because of a Woody Allen movie (Midnight in Paris) in which the character played by Owen Wilson misquotes a Faulkner line (while also saying it was by Faulkner). The quote was all of nine words from a Faulkner book. I'm not quite sure what Faulkner's estate is thinking, but it seems they believe that anyone who quotes the bare minimum of Faulkner owes them money. The second lawsuit, filed Friday, was against the Washington Post and defense contractor giant Northrop Grumman. Why? Because Northrop Grumman ran an ad in the Washington Post that quoted (with attribution) a single sentence from a Harper's article that Faulkner once wrote.The ad, which ran on July 4th, 2011, included: "We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. -- William Faulkner." It had a giant image of an American flag and some more text celebrating July 4th. As of the time of this posting, Northrop still has a pdf of the ad on its site (pdf). Pretty harmless. But Faulkner's estate pulls out the same arguments it used against Sony Pictures against both Northrop and the Washington Post -- both copyright and trademark claims.
Once again, it appears that both companies have very strong defenses as either de minimis use or fair use -- though, again, I'd be worried about both companies deciding it's cheaper to pay off the Faulkner people than fight this.
Given two such crazy cases filed in two days, for such short quotations, how likely is it that these are the only such lawsuits the Faulkner estate intends to file? Stay tuned...
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Filed Under: copyright, fair use, quote, trademark, william faulkner
Companies: northrop grumman, washington post
Reader Comments
The First Word
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Effect of the use upon the potential market
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I hope that someone reminds the Faulkner estate that when these companies talk about "going nuclear", they aren't talking about patent or copyright.
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Maybe Faulkner Literary Rights are taking these legal actions to make his misdeeds seem a little more likeable by comparison.
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Especially saying things like "We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. -- William Faulkner"
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That should provide more than enough cash to keep the estate litigating these terrible misuses of Faulkner's work.
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*Sniff*Sniff*
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Re: Effect of the use upon the potential market
/sarcasm
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Re: *Sniff*Sniff*
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Actually, the lawyers are inspired by Faulkner
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Re: Actually, the lawyers are inspired by Faulkner
Of course the next words sort of indicate the lack of sense of these lawsuits - "signifying nothing".
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Re: Re: Actually, the lawyers are inspired by Faulkner
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Hey guys
/ sarcasm
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You are making a baseless lame claim so you Greedy Moneygrubbers can suck more Money and you do not have the decency or moral behavior that you ought to have.
Fuck Your Copyrights !!!!
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Sadly, I think the facts surrounding legal uses won't matter to the lawyers
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Of course, Faulkner himself would probably want people to quote him
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His heirs seem to be more concerned about a quick money grab. At least on the surface it doesn't look like they care much about his legacy. It also looks like they have not read much of his work, or if they did they didn't take it to heart.
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-- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
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Here's a radical idea.
Change the system to where, if you file a lawsuit, it MUST go to trial. No payoffs to just go away. Lawyers fees for both sides are rolled into the final settlement as a percentage. The losing side lawyers get minimum wage for hours worked, while the winning side lawyers get what's left. And that's added ON TOP of the base settlement that MUST go directly to the winning side, NOT the lawyers.
I know, I know, there's probably a million and one holes in that plan, but it's nice to dream.
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I can imagine a case so completely one-sided that the defense is a gimme and the defense costs are all but guaranteed to be covered by the plaintiff. I can also imagine that I can suddenly become a billionaire through a freak inheritance from some wealthy relative I was previously unaware of. Both of those things are about equally likely.
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Trials are supposed to provide law and order, not a means of extortion.
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Everyone should quote Faulkner to prove a point.
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If nothing else, the 'must go to trial' part would absolutely gut the patent/porn trolling business, since most of the time the absolute last thing those people want is for people to actually be able to examine their 'evidence of wrongdoing/infringement'.
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That might be just what they want.
There's nothing like a ridiculous lawsuit to obtain publicity (presumably cheaper and more effective than mere advertising), and presumably an increase in book sales and revenue to the estate (and perks to the holders thereof).
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