Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group, Inc., Defendant-Cross Claimant-Appellant, Beth B. Golub, Defendant-Cross
AI Case Brief
Generate an AI-powered case brief with:
Estimated cost: $0.001 - $0.003 per brief
Full Opinion
This case presents two interesting and somewhat novel issues of copyright law. The first is whether The Seinfeld Aptitude Test, a trivia quiz book devoted exclusively to testing its readersâ recollection of scenes and events from the fictional television series Seinfeld, takes sufficient protected expression from the original, as evidenced by the bookâs substantial similarity to the television series, such that, in the absence of any defenses, the book would infringe the copyright in Seinfeld. The second is whether The Seinfeld Aptitude Test (also referred to as The SAT) constitutes fair use of the Seinfeld television series.
Defendants-appellants Carol Publishing Group, Inc. and Beth B. Golub appeal from the July 23, 1997 judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Sonia Sotomayor, District Judge) granting, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56, plaintiff-appellee Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc.âs (âCastle Rockâ) motion for summary judgment; denying defendantsâ cross-motion for summary judgment; awarding Castle Rock $403,000 for defendantsâ copyright infringement; and permanently enjoining defendants from publishing The Seinfeld Aptitude Test.
We conclude that The SAT unlawfully copies from Seinfeld and that its copying does not constitute fair use and thus is an actionable infringement. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment in favor of Castle Rock.
Background
The material facts in this case are undisputed. Plaintiff Castle Rock is the producer and copyright owner of each episode of the Seinfeld television series. The series revolves around the petty tribulations in the fives of four single, adult friends in New York: Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza, Elaine Benes, and Cosmo Kramer. Defendants are Beth Golub, the author, and Carol Publishing Group, Inc., the publisher, of The SAT, a 132-page book containing 643 trivia questions and answers about the events and characters depicted in Seinfeld. These include 211 multiple choice questions, in which only one out of three to five answers is correct; 93 matching questions; and a number of short-answer questions. The questions are divided into five levels of difficulty, labeled (in increasing order of difficulty) âWuss Questions,â âThis, That, and the Other Questions,â âTough Monkey Questions,â âAtomic Wedgie Questions,â and âMaster of Your Domain Questions.â Selected examples from level 1 are indicative of the questions throughout The SAT:
I. To impress a woman, George passes himself off as
a) a gynecologist
b) a geologist
c) a marine biologist
d) a meteorologist
II. What candy does Kramer snack on while observing a surgical procedure from an operating-room balcony?
12. Who said, âI donât go for those nonrefundable deals ... I canât commit to a woman ... Iâm not committing to an airline.â?
a) Jerry
b) George
c) Kramer 2
The book draws from 84 of the 86 Seinfeld episodes that had been broadcast as of the *136 time The SAT was published. Although Go-lub created the incorrect answers to the multiple choice questions, every question and correct answer has as its source a fictional moment in a Seinfeld episode. Forty-one questions and/or answers contain dialogue from Seinfeld. The single episode most drawn upon by The SAT, âThe Cigar Store Indian,â is the source of 20 questions that directly quote between 3.6% and 5.6% of that episode (defendantsâ and plaintiffâs calculations, respectively).
The name âSeinfeldâ appears prominently on the front and back covers of The SAT, and pictures of the principal actors in Seinfeld appear on the cover and on several pages of the book. On the back cover, a disclaimer states that âThis book has not been approved or licensed by any entity involved in creating or producing Seinfeld.â 3 The front cover bears the title âThe Seinfeld Aptitude Testâ and describes the book as containing â[h]un-dreds of spectacular questions of minute details from TVâs greatest show about absolutely nothing.â The back cover asks:
Just how well do you command the buzzwords, peccadilloes, petty annoyances, and triflingly complex escapades of Jerry Seinfeld, Elaine Benes, George Costanza, and Kramer â the fabulously neurotic foursome that makes the offbeat hit TV series Seinfeld tick?
If you think you know the answers â and really keep track of Seinfeld minutiaeâ challenge yourself and your friends with these 550 trivia questions and 10 extra matching quizzes. No, The Seinfeld Aptitude Test canât tell you whether youâre Master of Your Domain, but it will certify your status as King or Queen of Seinfeld trivia. So twist open a Snapple, double-dip a chip, and open this book to satisfy your between-episode cravings.
Golub has described The SAT as a ânatural outgrowthâ of Seinfeld which, âlike the Seinfeld show, is devoted to the trifling, picayune and petty annoyances encountered by the showâs characters on a daily basis.â According to Golub, she created The SAT by taking notes from Seinfeld programs at the time they were aired on television and subsequently reviewing videotapes of several of the episodes, as recorded by her or various friends.
The SATâs publication did not immediately provoke a challenge. The National Broadcasting Corporation, which broadcasted Seinfeld, requested free copies of The SAT from defendants and distributed them together with promotions for the program. Seinfeldâs executive producer characterized The SAT as âa fun little book.â There is no evidence that The SATâs publication diminished Seinfeldâs profitability, and in fact Seinfeldâs audience grew after The SAT was first published.
Castle Rock has nevertheless been highly selective in marketing products associated with Seinfeld, rejecting numerous proposals from publishers seeking approval for a variety of projects related to the show. Castle Rock licensed one Seinfeld book, The Entertainment Weekly Seinfeld Companion, and has licensed the production of a CD-ROM product that includes discussions of Seinfeld episodes; the CD-ROM allegedly might ultimately include a trivia bank. Castle Rock claims in this litigation that it plans to pursue a more aggressive marketing strategy for Seinfeld-related products, including âpublication of books relating to Seinfeld.â
In November 1994, Castle Rock notified defendants of its copyright and trademark infringement claims. In February 1995, after defendants continued to distribute The SAT, Castle Rock filed this action alleging federal copyright and trademark infringement and state law unfair competition. Subsequently, both parties moved, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56, for summary judgment on both the copyright and unfair competition claims.
The district court granted summary judgment to Castle Rock on the copyright claim. It held that defendants had violated plaintiffs copyrights in Seinfeld and that such copying did not constitute fair use. See Castle Rock Entertainment v. Carol Publâg Group, Inc., 955 F.Supp. 260, 274 (S.D.N.Y. 1997). The district court did not grant sum *137 mary judgment to either party on the unfair competition claim. See id. The parties then stipulated to damages and attorneysâ fees on the copyright infringement claim and, presumably to facilitate the appeal, to the dismissal without prejudice of all remaining claims. Carol Publishingâs cross-claims against Golub were dismissed with prejudice. The district court entered final judgment on the copyright infringement claim, awarded Castle Rock $403,000 with interest, permanently enjoined defendants from publishing or distributing The SAT, and ordered defendants to destroy all copies of The SAT in their custody or control. Defendants now appeal.
Discussion
I. Standard of Review
Summary judgment is appropriate only if the moving party can show that there is âno genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.â Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The court âmust draw all reasonable inferences and resolve all ambiguities in favor of the non-moving party.â Garza v. Marine Transp. Lines, Inc., 861 F.2d 23, 26 (2d Cir.1988). Although -â[flair use is a mixed question of law and fact,â Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enter., 471 U.S. 539, 560, 105 S.Ct. 2218, 85 L.Ed.2d 588 (1985), this court has on a number of occasions âresolved fair use determinations at the summary judgment stageâ where, as here, there are no genuine issues of material fact. Wright v. Warner Books, Inc., 953 F.2d 731, 735 (2d Cir.1991); Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 137 F.3d 109 (2d Cir.1998) (affirming summary judgment awarded to defendants on basis of fair use defense); Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 560, 105 S.Ct. 2218. We review the district courtâs legal conclusions de novo and its findings of fact for clear error. See American Geophysical Union v. Texaco Inc., 60 F.3d 913, 918 (2d Cir.1994).
II. Copyright Infringement
The Copyright Act of 1976 (âCopyright Actâ), 17 U.S.C. §§ 101-803, grants copyright owners a bundle of exclusive rights, including the rights to âreproduce the copyrighted work in copiesâ and âto prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work.â Id. § 106. âCopyright infringement is established when the owner of a valid copyright demonstrates unauthorized copying.â Repp v. Webber, 132 F.3d 882, 889 (2d Cir.1997); see Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 361, 111 S.Ct. 1282, 113 L.Ed.2d 358 (1991). There are two main components of this prima facie case of infringement: âa plaintiff must first show that his work was actually copied_[and] then must show that the copying amounts to an improper or unlawful appropriation.â Laureyssens v. Idea Group, Inc., 964 F.2d 131, 139-40 (2d Cir.1992) (quotation marks and citations omitted). Actual copying may be established âeither by direct evidence of copying or by indirect evidence, including access to the copyrighted work, similarities that are probative of copying between the works, and expert testimony.â Id. at 140. As we have noted before, âprobative,â rather than âsubstantialâ similarity is the correct term in referring to the plaintiffâs initial burden of proving actual copying by indirect evidence. See Webber, 132 F.3d at 889 n. 1; Laureyssens, 964 F.2d at 140. âIt is only after actual copying is established that one claiming infringementâ then proceeds to demonstrate that the copying was improper or unlawful by showing that the second work bears âsubstantial similarityâ to protected expression in the earlier work. Webber, 132 F.3d at 889; Laureyssens, 964 F.2d at 140.
In the instant case, no one disputes that Castle Rock owns valid copyrights in the Seinfeld television programs and that defendants actually copied from those programs in creating The SAT. Golub freely admitted that she created The SAT by taking notes from Seinfeld programs at the time they were aired on television and subsequently reviewing videotapes of several of the episodes that she or her friends recorded. Since the fact of copying is acknowledged and undisputed, the critical question for decision is whether the copying was unlawful or improper in that it took a sufficient amount of protected expression from Seinfeld as evidenced by its substantial similarity to such expression.
*138 A. âSubstantial Similarityâ
We have stated that âsubstantial similarityâ
requires that the copying [be] quantitatively a nd qualitatively sufficient to support the legal conclusion that infringement (ac tionable copying) has occurred. The qualitative component concerns the copying of expression, rather than ideas [, facts, works in the public domain, or any other non-protectable elements]- The quantitative component generally concerns the amount of the copyrighted work that is copied,
which must be more than âde minimis.â Ringgold v. Black Entertainment Television, Inc., 126 F.3d 70, 75 (2d Cir.1997) (emphasis added).
As to the quantitative element, we conclude that The SAT has crossed the de minimis threshold. At the outset, we observe that the fact that the copying appears in question and answer form is by itself without particular consequence: the trivia quiz copies fragments of Seinfeld in the same way that a collection of Seinfeld jokes or trivia would copy fragments of the series. In order to determine the quantitative extent of the defendantsâ copying, we must then decide whether to analyze separately the amount of expression copied from each individually copyrighted Seinfeld episode, or to analyze in the aggregate the amount copied from the eighty-four Seinfeld episodes. As defendants observe, 17 U.S.C. § 106 speaks throughout in the singular, referring to the allegedly infringed âwork,â thus bolstering an individual-episode analysis. Our precedents, however, tend to support the aggregate analysis. See Twin Peaks Prods., Inc. v. Publications Intâl, Ltd., 996 F.2d 1366, 1372-73, 1381 (2d Cir.1993) (finding substantial similarity between infringing book and 8 episodes of Twin Peaks weekly television series seen as a whole, but awarding statutory damages on per-episode basis); Wainwright Secs. Inc. v. Wall St. Transcript Corp., 558 F.2d 91, 94 (2d Cir.1977) (abstracts of a number of research reports treated cumulatively in fair use analysis); see also Craft v. Kobler, 667 F.Supp. 120, 124-25 (S.D.N.Y.1987) (passages taken from 15 separate books of copyright holder treated cumulatively in finding infringement); cf. New Era Publications Intâl, ApS v. Carol Publâg Group, 904 F.2d 152, 158 (2d Cir.1990) (in analyzing whether critical biography was fair use of 48 original writings, court noted that biography âuses overall a small percentage of [plaintiffs] works â but also noted that percentage of copying taken from each individual work was not âunfairâ) (emphasis added); but see Salinger v. Random House, Inc., 811 F.2d 90, 98 (2d Cir.1987) (copying of Salinger letters not fair use because, among other factors, secondary work copied one-third of 17 letters and 10 percent of 42 letters).
As in Twin Peaks, for the purposes of the quantitative copying analysis we shall treat Seinfeldâa discrete, continuous television seriesâas a single work. 4 Where the secondary work focuses on an entire continuous television series such as Seinfeld, there is no basis for looking in isolation at the amount copied from each separately copyrighted episode. Although 17 U.S.C. § 106 speaks in terms of a singular copyrighted âwork,â it would elevate form over substance to conclude that The SATâs copying of 643 fragments from 84 individually copyrighted Seinfeld episodes is indistinguishable from a case in which a 634-question trivia quiz book poses a few questions from each of 84 unrelated television programs, books, movies, or any combination of creative works that do not constitute a discrete series of works. Had The SAT copied a few fragments from each of 84 unrelated television programs (perhaps comprising the entire line-up on broadcast television), defendants would have a stronger case under the de minimis doctrine. By copying not a few but 643 fragments from the Seinfeld television series, however, The SAT has plainly crossed the quantitative copying threshold under Ringgold.
As to Ringgoldâs, qualitative component, each SAT trivia question is based directly upon original, protectable expression in Seinfeld. As noted by the district court, The SAT did not copy from Seinfeld unprotected *139 facts, but, rather, creative expression. Cf. Feist, 499 U.S. at 364, 111 S.Ct. 1282 (finding no infringement where defendant produced a multi-county phone directory, in part, by obtaining names and phone numbers from plaintiffsâ single-county directory). Unlike the facts in a phone book, which âdo not owe their origin to an act of authorship,â id. at 347, 111 S.Ct. 1282, each âfactâ tested by The SAT is in reality fictitious expression created by Seinfeldâs authors. The SAT does not quiz such true facts as the identity of the actors in Seinfeld, the number of days it takes to shoot an episode, the biographies of the actors, the location of the Seinfeld set, etc. Rather, The SAT tests whether the reader knows that the character Jerry places a Pez dispenser on Elaineâs leg during a piano recital, that Kramer enjoys going to the airport because heâs hypnotized by the baggage carousels, and that Jerry, opining on how to identify a virgin, said âItâs not like spotting a toupee.â Because these characters and events spring from the imagination of Seinfeldâs authors, The SAT plainly copies copyrightable, creative expression. 5 . See Feist, 499 U.S. at 347, 111 S.Ct. 1282 (discussing distinction between discovered facts, which do not âowe their origin to an act of authorshipâ and therefore are not protected by copyright, and created facts, which constitute original, protected expression).
We find support for this conclusion in a previous case in which we held that a series of still photographs of a ballet may in some cases infringe the copyright in an original choreographic work. See Horgan v. Macmillan, Inc., 789 F.2d 157, 163 (2d Cir.1986). The defendants in Horgan claimed that still photographs could not.âcapture the flow of movement, which is the essence of dance,â that âthe staged performance could not be recreated from the photographs,â and thus, that the photographs were not substantially similar to the choreographic work. Id. at 161-62 (quotation marks omitted). Although noting that the issue âwas not a simple one,â this court rejected that argument, holding that âthe standard for determining copyright infringement is not whether the original could be recreated from the allegedly infringing copy, but whether the latter is substantially similar to the former.â Id. at 162 (quotation marks omitted). That observation applies with equal force to the trivia quiz fragments in this case. Although Seinfeld could not be ârecreatedâ from The SAT, Castle Rock has nevertheless established both the quantitative and qualitative components of the substantial similarity test, establishing a prima facie case of copyright infringement.
B. Other Tests
As defendants note, substantial similarity usually âarises out of a claim of infringement as between comparable works .... [where] because of the equivalent nature of the competing works, the question of similarity can be tested conventionally by comparing comparable elements of the two works.â Because in the instant ease the original and secondary works are of different genres and to a lesser extent because they are in different media, tests for substantial similarity other than the quantitative/qualitative approach are not particularly helpful to our analysis.
Under the âordinary observerâ test, for example, â[t]wo works are substantially similar where âthe ordinary observer, unless he set out to detect the disparities, would be disposed to overlook them, and regard [the] aesthetic appeal [of the two works] as the same.ââ Arica Inst., Inc. v. Palmer, 970 F.2d 1067, 1072 (2d Cir.1992) (quoting Peter Pan Fabrics, Inc. v. Martin Weiner Corp., 274 F.2d 487, 489 (2d Cir.1960) (L.Hand, J.) (comparing dress designs)) (alterations in original). Undoubtedly, Judge Hand did not have in mind a comparison of aesthetic appeal as between a television series and a trivia quiz and, in the usual case, we might *140 question whether any âordinary observerâ would âregard [the] aesthetic appealâ in -a situation-comedy television program as being' identical to that of any book, let alone a trivia quiz book, about that program. Cf. Laureyssens, 964 F.2d at 132, 141 (applying âordinary observerâ test to compare two sets of foam rubber puzzles). We note here, however, that plaintiff has a plausible claim that there is a common aesthetic appeal between the two works based on The SATâs plain copying of Seinfeld and Golubâs statement on the back cover that the book was designed to complement the aesthetic appeal of the television series. See The SAT (âSo twist open a Snapple, double-dip a chip, and open this book to satisfy your between episode cravings.â).
Under the âtotal concept and feelâ test, urged by defendants, we analyze âthe similarities in such aspects as the total concept and feel, theme, characters, plot, sequence, pace, and settingâ of the original and the allegedly infringing works. Williams v. Crichton, 84 F.3d 581, 588 (2d Cir.1996) (comparing childrenâs books with novel and movie); Reyher v. Childrenâs Television Workshop, 533 F.2d 87, 91 (2d Cir.1976) (comparing childrenâs book with story in Sesame Street Magazine). Defendants contend that The SAT and the Seinfeld programs are incomparable in conventional terms such as plot, sequence, themes, pace, and setting. For example, The SAT has no plot; â[t]he notion of pace ... cannot be said even to exist in the bookâ; The SATâs âsequence has no relationship to the sequences of any of the Seinfeld episodes, since it is a totally random and scattered collection of questions relating to events that occurred in the showsâ; and The SATâs only theme âis how much a Seinfeld fan can remember of 84 different programs.â The total concept and feel test, however, is simply not helpful in analyzing works that, because of their different genres and media, must necessarily have a different concept and feel. Indeed, many âderivativeâ works of different genres, in which copyright owners, have exclusive rights, see 17 U.S.C. § 106, may have a different total concept and feel from the original work.
Finally, we do not apply the âfragmented literal similarityâ test, 6 which focuses upon copying of direct quotations or close paraphrasing, or the âcomprehensive nonli-teral similarityâ test, which examines whether âthe fundamental essence or structure of one work is duplicated in another.â 4 Melville B. Nimmer & David Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright § 13.03[A][1], at 13-29, § 13.03[A][2], at 13-45 (1997) (hereafter âNimmerâ); Twin Peaks, 996 F.2d at 1372-73(applying Nimmer test); Warner Bros. Inc. v. American Broad. Cos., 720 F.2d 231, 240, 242 (2d Cir.1983) (applying Nimmer test to compare Superman and The Greatest American Hero). In the instant case, because the direct .quotations or close paraphrases that The SAT copied from the Seinfeld series are few and almost irrelevant to The SAT, undue focus upon these isolated quotations could improperly distract us from inquiring as to whether substantial similarity exists between Seinfeld and The SAT.
Castle Rockâs comprehensive nonliteral similarity argument&emdash;that the defendants âliterally constructed the SAT with 643 fragments of Seinfeldâs creative wholeâ&emdash;is also unhelpful to our analysis and unnecessary to our determination that The SAT is substantially similar to Seinfeld. Without having viewed Seinfeld itself, no SAT reader could plausibly âconstructâ in his or her mind the plot of any Seinfeld episode, nor any of Seinfeldâs, settings (the Seinfeld and Kramer apartments, the foursomeâs restaurant hangout, George Steinbrennerâs office, etc.), nor even the four principal Seinfeld characters. Nor does The SAT â[duplicate] the fundamental essence or structureâ of Seinfeld. 4 Nimmer § 13.03[A][1], at 13-29; cf. Twin Peaks, 996 F.2d 1372-73 (finding âsubstantial similarity through comprehensive nonliteral similarityâ where chapter of infringing book âis essentially a detailed recounting of the first eight episodes of the [television] seriesâ and â[e]very intricate plot twist and element of character development appear in the Book *141 in the same sequence as in the teleplaysâ). However, â[t]he standard for determining copyright infringement is not whether the original could be recreated from the allegedly infringing copy, but whether the latter is âsubstantially similarâ to the former,â Hor-gan, 789 F.2d at 162, and in copying a sufficient amount of protected expression from the Seinfeld television series, The SAT easily passes the threshold of substantial similarity between the contents of the secondary work and the protected expression in the original.
III. Fair Use
Defendants claim that, even if The SATâs copying of Seinfeld constitutes prima facie infringement, The SAT is nevertheless a fair use of Seinfeld. âFrom the infancy of copyright protection,â- the fair use doctrine âhas been thought necessary to fulfill copyrightâs very purpose, â[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.â â Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 575, 114 S.Ct. 1164, 127 L.Ed.2d 500 (1994) (quoting U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 8). As noted in Campbell, âin truth, in literature, in science and in art, there are, and can be, few, if any, things, which in an abstract sense, are strictly new and original throughout. Every book in literature, science and art, borrows, and must necessarily borrow, and use much which was well known and used before.â Id. (quotation marks omitted). Until the 1976 Copyright Act, the doctrine of fair use grew exclusively out of the common law. See id. at 576, 114 S.Ct. 1164; Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F.Cas. 342, 348 (C.D.Mass.1900) (CCD Mass. 1841) (Story, J.) (stating fair use test); Pierre N. Leval, Toward a Fair Use Standard, 103 Harv. L.Rev. 1105, 1105 (1990) (âLevalâ).
In the Copyright Act, Congress restated the common law tradition of fair use:
[T]he fair use of a copyrighted, work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), 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&emdash;
(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 thĂŠ copyrighted work.
17 U.S.C. § 107. This section âintended that courts continue the common law tradition of fair use adjudicationâ and âpermits and requires courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute, when, on occasion, it would stifle the very creativity which that law is designed to foster.â Campbell, 510 U.S. at 577, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quotation marks omitted). Fair use analysis, therefore, always âcalls for case-by-case analysis.â Id. The fair use examples provided in § 107 are âillustrative and not limitativeâ and âprovide only general guidance about the sorts of copying that courts and Congress most commonly had found to be fair uses.â Id. at 577-78, 114 S.Ct. 1164. Similarly, the four listed statutory factors in § 107 guide but do not control our fair use analysis and âare to be explored, and the results weighed together, in light of the purposes of copyright.â Id.; see 4 Nimmer § 13.05[A], at 13-153 (â[T]he factors contained in Section 107 are merely by way of example, and are not an exhaustive enumeration.â). The ultimate test of fair use, therefore, is whether the copyright lawâs goal of âpromoting] the Progress of Science and useful Arts,â U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 8, âwould be better served by allowing the use than by preventing it.â Arica, 970 F.2d at 1077.
A. Purpose/Character of Use
The first fair use factor to consider is âthe purpose and character of the [allegedly infringing] use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.â 17 U.S.C. § 107(1). That The SATâs use is commercial, at most, âtends to weigh against a finding of fair use.â *142 Campbell, 510 U.S. at 585, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quotation marks omitted); Texaco, 60 F.3d at 921. But we do not make too much of this point. As noted in Campbell, ânearly all of the' illustrative uses listed in the preamble paragraph of § 107, including news reporting, comment, criticism, teaching, scholarship, and research ... are generally conducted for profit in this country,â 510 U.S. at 584, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quotation marks omitted), and âno man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,â id. (quoting 3 Boswellâs Life of Johnson 19 (G. Hill ed.1934)). We therefore do not give much weight to the fact that the secondary use was for commercial gain.
The more critical inquiry under the first factor and in fair use analysis generally is whether the allegedly infringing work âmerely supersedesâ the original work âor instead adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new ... meaning [ ] or message,â in other words âwhether and to what extent the new work is âtransformative.â â Id. at 579, 114 S.Ct. 1164 (quoting Leval at 1111). If âthe secondary use adds value to the original&emdash;if [copyrightable expression in the original work] is used as raw material, transformed in the creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and understandings&emdash;this is the very type of activity that the fair use doctrine intends to protect for the enrichment of society.â Leval at 1111. In short, âthe goal of copyright, to promote science and the arts, is generally furthered by the creation ⢠of transformative works.â Campbell, 510 U.S. at 579, 114 S.Ct. 1164.
Defendants claim two' primary âtransformativeâ qualities of The SAT. First, as noted by the district court, âa text testing oneâs knowledge of Joyceâs Ulysses, or Shakespeareâs Hamlet, would qualify as âcriticism, comment, scholarship, or research,â or such. The same