“Quote?” Or Copyright Infringement?
A federal judge in Mississippi on Thursday July 18, 2013, dismissed a lawsuit claiming that Woody Allen’s 2011 film “Midnight in Paris” improperly used of William Faulkner’s most famous quotes. The lawsuit argued that the film distributor violated both the copyright and the Lanham Act by allowing a character in the movie to quote a passage from Faulkner’s “Requiem for a Nun” – “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The quote referenced by actor Owen Wilson in the movie went as follows: “The past is not dead. Actually, it’s not even past. You know who said that? Faulkner. And he was right. I met him too. I ran into him at a dinner party.”
In his ruling the judge analyzes the factors that comprise a fair use defense to see whether Sony’s use of the quote was acceptable. When deciding whether the work was transformative, or rather, if the source work is used in a new or unexpected way, the judge had this to say: “This transmogrification [from book to movie comedy] in medium tips this factor in favor of transformative, and thus, fair use.”
The Judge went on to state, “At issue in this case is whether a single line from a full-length novel singly paraphrased and attributed to the original author in a full-length Hollywood film can be considered copyright infringement. In this case, it cannot.”
The full ruling can be found here.