.
| Hearsay: |
After granting a temporary restraining order last month, a United States District Court judge has ruled against Swedish author Frederik Colting and his Catcher in the Rye sequel, 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. Colting, writing under the name John David California, is now prohibited from publishing, advertising or distributing the book in the United States.
There’s been plenty of talk lately about shifts in the concept of intellectual property and copyright laws, but that’s not what’s happening here. Colting maintains that the book was intended as a parody, yet the court found “such contentions to be post-hoc rationalizations employed through vague generalizations about the alleged naivety of the original, rather than reasonably perceivable parody.” In other words, in the judge’s eyes 60 Years Later doesn’t work as satire, and is therefore in violation of Salinger’s copyright. Essentially, the court is seeing fit to rule on the quality of a writer’s work, whether he pulled off what he claims he intended to — and since the intent can’t be proved, all that’s left to go by is the execution. And what you’re left with, when you start mandating skill, is censorship.
There’s a lively discussion going on in the Comments section of the New York Times City Room article on the case, invoking the ongoing germination of art, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Picasso, and the general act of standing on the shoulders of giants. Me, I’m looking at my copy of Catcher, a New American Library paperback from 1962 that’s been held together with masking tape so long it’s become part of the cover. And right there on the title page is a blurb from the Book-of-the-Month Club News, telling you that the book “will recall to many the comedies and tragedies of Booth Tarkington’s Seventeen.” That novel is in the public domain now, and I have no idea if Tarkington renewed the 1916 copyright when it expired. He died in 1946, though, five years before Salinger published his book, so we’ll never know if he would have thought Holden Caulfield strayed just a bit too close to Seventeen’s William:
William Sylvanus Baxter paused for a moment of thought in front of the drug-store at the corner of Washington Street and Central Avenue. He had an internal question to settle before he entered the store: he wished to allow the young man at the soda-fountain no excuse for saying, “Well, make up your mind what it’s goin’ to be, can’t you?” Rudeness of this kind, especially in the presence of girls and women, was hard to bear, and though William Sylvanus Baxter had borne it upon occasion, he had reached an age when he found it intolerable. Therefore, to avoid offering opportunity for anything of the kind, he decided upon chocolate and strawberry, mixed, before approaching the fountain. Once there, however, and a large glass of these flavors and diluted ice-cream proving merely provocative, he said, languidly—an affectation, for he could have disposed of half a dozen with gusto: “Well, now I’m here, I might as well go one more. Fill ‘er up again. Same.”
Emerging to the street, penniless, he bent a fascinated and dramatic gaze upon his reflection in the drug-store window, and then, as he turned his back upon the alluring image, his expression altered to one of lofty and uncondescending amusement. That was his glance at the passing public. From the heights, he seemed to bestow upon the world a mysterious derision—for William Sylvanus Baxter was seventeen long years of age, and had learned to present the appearance of one who possesses inside information about life and knows all strangers and most acquaintances to be of inferior caste, costume, and intelligence.
What do you think? I think dead authors don’t sue, and rich famous ones have the luxury of playing fast and loose with the First Amendment. I really hope Colting contests.
January 2006
December
2005
November
2005
October
2005
September
2005
August
2005
July
2005
June
2005
May
2005
April
2005
March
2005
February
2005
January
2005
December
2004
November
2004
October
2004
September
2004
August
2004
July
2004
June
2004
May
2004
April
2004
March
2004
February
2004
January
2004
December
2003
November
2003
October
2003
September
2003
August
2003
Bookninja © Copyright
The opinions expressed on this site are those of individual participants
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the site owners,
organizers, or other participants.
[powered by WordPress.]
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:49 am
I think that’s horrible they blocked the publishing of the book. Let the people read it and decide for themselves. Typical judge nazis. They always resort to using censorship to silence difference of opinions.
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:52 am
It would be different if Colting had said it was a parody right from the get go, but every word out of his mouth–and every word from his US publisher as well–was “sequel”, and things like “parody” and “commentary” only got trotted out after he got sued, and not even immediately after. No good faith attempt was ever made to present Coming Through the Rye as anything but a work using IP that’s still subject to copyright. In fact, Colting made every effort to make its status as a controversial violation of copyright quite plain, in what was clearly an attempt to generate press which would in turn generate sales. What he didn’t seem to have calculated, based on what I’ve read, is not that Salinger wouldn’t sue, but rather that Colting’s own lack of good faith would be completely obvious to any marginally competent jurist. That the judge granted a restraining order at all before making a ruling indicated that the legal issues were clear, but that a closer examination of the work was required for due diligence.
I can’t say I’m entirely pleased with the current state of copyright law (though I don’t believe that any of the measures I’ve seen proposed to fix it get everything right), but I do believe that if you blatantly steal the IP of a living author, make a point of announcing it in your press, in fact, you deserve a (metaphorical) smack on the mouth.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:04 am
I do think that Colting’s intent is important, especially if he intentionally tried to make it look like a violation of copyright in order to spur sales. Still, it’s an interesting issue – because proving intent is always a tricky thing to prove in trial, which makes for valid censorship concerns. I’d like to know more about this.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:22 am
Guess this rules out my Harry Potter sequel. Harry and Ron take on Opus Dei with the help of Alice from Wonderland whom they meet on strange baseball diamond in an Iowa corn field. Nothing wrong with that.
Society now steals songs, TV shows and DVDs on-line. Must we steal characters too. The author can write all the Salinger-like books he wishes, but he should at least attempt to think up his own character.
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:30 am
Yes, while I think current copyrights are too long, this doesn’t sound like a parody or any such exception to me. It sounds like using the name and certain characteristics of a character to create interest in a book that is really just a sequel.
I haven’t read the relevant cases and all that so don’t know what I would have decided if I were the judge, but on it’s face it sounds like the problem (if any) would be with the law itself. And on that point, I’m not really sure what I think a good copyright length would be — 25 years? I don’t have any problem with the fact that right now JK Rowling is the only one who can write a Harry Potter sequel, for example.
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:34 am
It’s true, if this guy had just called it a paraody from the start he’d be easier to believe now, but he cleary said sequel. It may be a subtle difference to some but that’s no reason to discount it.
In many of these discussions the problems people complain about as copyright law are really contract law. I sign contracts with publishers to print and distribute my novels. Those contracts give specific publishers the exclusive right to distribute those books for agreed-upon terms. That printing and distribution isn’t free.
Now there are methods of distribution which are free and there are millions of books available that way which have no copyrights or contracts attatched to them. If this guy wants to write sequels to any of those and distribute his work for free, no one’s going to stop him. People do it every day. They even write sequels to copyrighted work ad distribute it online all the time. No one stops them.
But that’s not what this guy tried to do. I’m not sure why anyone on a site devoted to books and publishing would want to encourage this guy. Sure, we all stand on the shoulders of giants – almost every review I’ve received has made some comparison between my books and Elmore Leonard’s novels. He’s certainly been an inspiration to me. So has Raymond Carver but because my books have crimes in them no one ever makes that comparison.
It’s entirely possible that someday all writing will be freely exchanged online and literature will become nothing more than a hobby. Till then…
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:37 am
The book’s original press material described John David California as a former gravedigger who “first became acquainted with The Catcher in the Rye after finding a well-thumbed copy in an abandoned cabin in rural Cambodia.” His birthday is listed as April 1. And Windup Bird publishing is an imprint of Nicotext, whose website says “we make books whose sole purpose it is to make you giggle.” Exactly how explicit does the “parody” label need to be?
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:01 am
It’s not just how he presents it (although I agree that the use of the word “sequel” probably hurt his case quite a lot), but the nature of the work which actually exists. Whether something is a parody is one of those “know it when you read it” sorts of things, at least somewhat, so I really don’t have a stron opinion not having read it, but based on the descriptions, the work itself really doesn’t sound like it’s just a parody to me.
Looking at the fair use factors in a parody specific way — the purpose seems predominently commercial, not to comment on the earlier work, and the use sounds like its taking advantage of a market for derivative works from the original rather than really being intended to use the work for comic effect, to ridicule, or to make some sort of point. Indeed, it seems vague what the point is, and as for the extent of use, one could make the point that might be there — that Holden is self-deceptional or annoying or some such — without using so much of it or writing a book length treatment.
But I freely admit that I might totally disagree with the judge were I to actually read it.
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:04 am
And I can think all that and also think that Salinger shouldn’t have sued, which I do.
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:23 pm
What should Salinger have done? (and was it actually Salinger who sued, or the publisher?)
If Mr. California had wanted to write a parody of “The Catcher in the Rye” and post it on his blog or email it to all his friends – or probably – post it on one of the thousands of fan fic sites it likely would have gone unnoticed. I haven’t checked, but my guess is there’s already a lot of “The Catcher in the Rye” fan fic out there.
It’s also possible that, like Weird Al Jankowitz does with his songs, Mr. Califonia could have asked persmission to publish his parody. Although asking permission is something we’ve lost in the internet age. JD Salinger is a character with dialogue and everything in WP Kinsella’s novel “Shoeless Joe Jackson,” and that was never censored (though it was changed for the movie).
Once Salinger is dead and the copyright runs out we’ll get plenty of “Raise High the Roof Beams Carpenters and Zombies,” and a new Holden Caulfield in the movies every few years. It doesn’t seem so bad that we have to wait. Or ask. Or put the parodies on blogs.
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I don’t think that author description, or the publisher’s description, cuts it. There are a number of authors I can think of who frequently publish ridiculous bios to go along with intellectually serious works.
Or look at the whole of the McSweeney’s operation. They’ve been publishing deadly serious non-fiction, travelogues about trips to the killing fields, Weschler’s convergences, and so on since day one, but always presented themselves in a less-than serious manner–so much so that many people who hadn’t taken a proper look at the work assumed they were a humour publication. (The website, for the most part, is, but the magazine and publishing enterprise has never been.) The issue here is good faith: McSweeney’s may have been light about themselves, but they always made a good faith effort to present the work as what it was, and nobody with any sense treats them as a humour magazine now, though they still have that playful attitude.
As I implied in my original comment, this strikes me as entirely an issue of good faith, and the judge rightly found that no good faith attempt at parody was made either in the text or its promotion, and that “parody” was an ex post facto justification for a publicity stunt/cash grab.
I think Salinger was right to sue. In our increasingly mercenary world, some people need to learn the hard way that the things they say an do have consequences.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
>What should Salinger have done? (and was it actually Salinger who sued, or the publisher?)
It was actually Salinger, and I think he shouldn’t have done anything. Just because you have rights doesn’t mean you have to enforce them. Here, I think copyright law should be amended to make the copyrights shorter — at this point the author of a derivative work is not so much cashing in on the popularity of a creation as a cultural icon, and I seriously doubt it interferes with Salinger’s commercial interests in any real way.
So if I were in his position, I would have just ignored it.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
(I left out words above — I meant “playing with a cultural icon.” The point being that while it doesn’t really feel like parody as currently defined, to me, it doesn’t seem like a straight sequel, either. It can’t be. Something about the passage of time and the position of the work in our culture makes it something different which the law doesn’t clearly fit. So while no great loss from locking it and as a legal matter it makes sense to me, I don’t at all think it’s the sort of thing which ought to be forbidden.)