OT: be careful quoting Faulkner

[Baker, John]

What I find particularly amusing is that The New York Times, in describing the suit (albeit only in a blog, but it's still the same potential corporate defendant), quotes the allegedly offending passage from Faulkner verbatim, not just in paraphrase as the movie did.  If this is a copyright violation, the Yale Book of Quotations and its competitors will be swiftly out of business, and it's hard to see the fair use doctrine as other than a dead letter.

The complaint actually has three counts.  The first is the obviously nonstarter copyright claim.  The second claims implied affiliation with Faulkner, and the third claims misappropriation of Faulkner's name and works.  I expect that those claims will be losers also, but they are not as obviously frivolous as the copyright claim.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joel S. Berson
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 2:28 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: OT: be careful quoting Faulkner

At 10/26/2012 02:05 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/the-past-is-never-dead-a-f
>aulkner-quote-in-midnight-in-paris-results-in-a-lawsuit/

Perhaps he's been repropriated, and can testify in person?

(But wouldn't two sentences, totaling 9 words, not even quoted but paraphrased, and even attributed to their author, be fair use, and a copyright suit thrown out of court in 10 seconds?)

Joel

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