ALT Anderson v. Stallone, 1989 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11109 (C.D. Cal. 1989) - A screenwriter wrote a fourth Rocky screenplay after seeing the first three movies and proposed it to Sylvester Stallone. Then, when Rocky IV had an alleged similar theme to the proposed screenplay, the screenwriter sued. But the Court held that the screenplay was an unauthorized derivative that could not be infringed, because it was itself infringing on Rocky.
ALT Salinger v. Colting, 607 F.3d 68 (2d Cir. 2010) - The novel 60 Years Later by Fredrik Colting told the story of a 76-year-old version of Holden Caulfield haunting a 90- year-old J.D. Salinger. The author argued that the novel was not a sequel to Catcher in the Rye, but a critique. The Court found that the use of the characters and themes was likely not fair use.
ALT Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mufflin, 268 F.3d 1257 (11 Cir. 2001) - The estate of Gone with the Wind author Margaret Mitchell sued the publisher of Alice Randall's The Wind Done Gone, which borrowed Gone with the Wind's characters, setting, and plot. However, it was written from the perspective of one of Scarlett O'Hara's enslaved women. The Court held that this was a critique on the original's treatment of racial issues and therefore constituted fair use.
ALT Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Axanar Productions, Inc., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71651 (C.D. Cal. 2016)- Defendant raised about $1.5 million through crowdfunding to make a short film telling the backstory of a Star Trek character during the Klingon War. Paramount and CBS sued Defendant for copyright infringement. Defendant tried to argue that this was a transformative fair use, but the Court disagreed, holding that the cumulative use of Star Trek elements and characters and elements was infringement of the original. A big factor here was that, due to the funding and hiring of professional actors, this was actually a threat to the market.
