{"id":283,"date":"2004-06-22T11:49:00","date_gmt":"2004-06-22T11:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/trademark_law\/fahrenheit_451.html"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1970-01-01T05:00:00","slug":"fahrenheit_451","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/2004\/06\/22\/fahrenheit_451","title":{"rendered":"Fahrenheit 451 vs. Fahrenheit 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ray Bradbury<\/a>·<\/a>, author of the acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451<\/a>·<\/a>, is demanding that Michael Moore<\/a>·<\/a> apologize and change the title of his new film<\/a>·<\/a>, Farenheit 9\/11<\/a>·<\/a>, which starts playing this Friday<\/a>·<\/a>. Bradbury says he wants to avoid litigation, but it’s not clear he’ll back down unless the film’s title is changed, which strikes me as unlikely. <\/p>\n

This is poor judgment on Bradbury’s part. I would be willing to put money on the release of Fahrenheit 9\/11 helping sales of the book Fahrenheit 451. I’m not sure what sort of claim Bradbury would make, but I assume it would be under trademark law. I can’t imagine Bradbury demonstrating: (1) that there will be any likelihood of confusion at all as to the source or origin of Moore’s film or (2) damages. Or perhaps it would be a claim for copyright infringement. I’m not aware of any cases where a copyright holder has demonstrated infringement based on similarity of title alone, but I may be mistaken. <\/p>\n

This reminds me of the ongoing battle over DJ Dangermouse’s The Grey Album<\/a>·<\/a>, in which the Beatles’ record label has shut down distribution of a remix of the White Album. In both cases, a younger generation who may not have been exposed to the earlier work is made aware of it, and is much more likely to purchase copies of the earlier work. <\/p>\n

Fundamentally, though, it’s not about money, it’s about control. One of the points John Zorn makes repeatedly in the documentary A Bookshelf On Top Of The Sky<\/a> is that you can’t control a work of art you’ve created. It’s not really “yours” any more than a child you create is “yours.” You have all these ideas about what you want your child to be and what you want your child to do, but it takes on a life of its own and you just have to let it go. I’m sure, however, that many copyright holders do not entirely share Zorn’s philosophy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ray Bradbury·, author of the acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451·, is demanding that Michael Moore· apologize and change the title of his new film·, Farenheit 9\/11·, which starts playing this Friday·. Bradbury says he wants to avoid litigation, but it’s not clear he’ll back down unless the film’s title is changed, which strikes me as unlikely. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adam.rosi-kessel.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}