The Undergraduate Law Review at UC San Diego

Written texts are able to qualify for copyright protections that help serve as legal protections and ownerships for the author. However, oftentimes these written texts can become an inspiration for another text derivative. These text derivatives are considered copyright infringement if they are interpreted as so by judicial courts under four factors. The precedent of these four factors are that they are treated differently by different courts as seen through court cases such as Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. Penguin Books USA, Inc. and Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. and J.K Rowling v. RDR Books where courts show compelling and yet different interpretations of the four factors. This article highlights how there should be a better understanding and a multi-tiered methodology for interpreting the four factors. Ultimately, derivative texts should be deemed transformative enough in nature regardless of whether it satisfies any of the other three factors and should be able to satisfy one of the remaining three factors. This helps protect the author(s) of the original copyrighted work while also allowing for creativity and profound benefits to society.