J.D. Salinger lawsuit

The famous recluse is suing an author who has written a sequel to "Catcher in the Rye," with a 76-year-old Holden Caulfield as the protagonist:

http://blogs.wSportsJournalists.com/law/2009/06/02/a-closer-look-at-the-jd-salinger-lawsuit/

Should be interesting. Wish that he would emerge for other reasons than the chase kids off his lawn.

 

Didn't this whole practice of literary ringing-and-running get tired back in, oh, 1973? I mean, I can see the thrill in Salinger-baiting... I suppose.... but the guy's ninety. Isn't it time to give it a rest?

The only fitting coda to this is when he teeters out onto his front yard next month and publicly burns his five sequels to Catcher, all the while laughing manically.

 

Assuming Holden Caulfield and Catcher in the Rye are copyrighted, isn't Salinger in the right here?

 

At some point, when you're as famous for being a recluse as anything you've accomplished in your life, it's just sad.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure under American copyright law you can't use previously-copyrighted characters as basis for new works without the permission of the rightsholders, except in the case of clear satire (which appears to be the basis of the defense).

 

Of course, the suit will end when the defense tries to depose the plaintiff. Recluse is a tough gig if you're gonna be consistent about it.

 

Reading the lawyer they have in the link, it seems a bit murkier than that.

Copyright law is always weird and hard to navigate.

 

They'll send Ray Kinsella to find him.

 

Went ahead and fixed that for you!

 

The wanna-be publisher of the sequel is a fraud. He really is.

 

OTOH, he did successfully stop the publication of some of his letters by lawsuit a while back. Not sure if he had to be deposed, though.