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Cat In The Hat Analysis

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“Parody is the use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one,” Justice Diarmuid F. Souter says. “At least in part, comments on that author’s works.” Dr. Seuss Enterprises sued Penguin Books USA, Inc. and Dove Audio, Inc. in hopes of winning their case based off of copyright laws, but it wasn’t as easy as they thought. Penguin Books created a book that was based off the OJ Simpsons trial, but had a twist on it. The entire book was a rhyme and was called “The Cat NOT in the Hat.” Not only did it represent the original, “The Cat in the Hat,” but it showed the trademarked cat’s hat 13 times throughout the story. Penguin Books did not have permission from Seuss to use any of their trademark items and they were not authorized to use and of Seuss’s items. Seuss alleged that Penguin Books misappropriated their copyright policy by using six …show more content…

Another reason is the poetic meter used in Cat in the Hat, there is no ownership over that. Seuss tried to say that Penguin Books copied their title, but titles can’t be copyrighted so Penguin Books was free on that. The last reason is there is no claim of ownership over the poetic style. Since this case is not unusual, the court went back to the Sid & Marty Krofft Television Prods., Inc. V. McDonald’s Corp. case in order to find their decision. They also went back to Sleekcraft in order to find the “Likelihood of confusion.” They went back to this because Penguin Books was arguing that they technically never used any words or trademarks in the book. In one of the cases, the court found the Cat Not in the Hat was not entitled to a parody fair defense because it failed to target the original work. Therefore, they were still not sure if this was a case of parody or

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