Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Suntrust Bank v. Houghton Mifflin Co.
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Argued --- Decided --- October 10, 2001
Full case name: Suntrust Bank, as Trustee of the Stephen Mitchell trusts f.b.o. Eugene Muse Mitchell and Joseph Reynolds Mitchell v. Houghton Mifflin Company Citations: 268 F.3d 1257 Prior history: 136 F.Supp.2d 1357 Subsequent history: ---
Holding
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Court membership
Chief Judge --- Associate Judges --- Birch, Marcus, Wood (of the 7th Cir., sitting by designation)
Case opinions
Majority by: --- Birch Joined by: ---
Laws applied
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Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin Co., 252 F. 3d 1165 (11th Cir. 2001), opinion at 268 F.3d 1257, was a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit against the owner of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, vacating an injunction prohibiting the publisher of Alice Randall's The Wind Done Gone from distributing the book.

This case arguably stands for the principle that the creation and publication of a carefully written parody novel in the United States counts as fair use. Despite stating that substantial portions of Mitchell's work were used, the Court of Appeals found that the likely outcome of a full adjudication of the rights involved was a finding of fair use. In permitting parody without permission, the decision follows the previous United States Supreme Court decision in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. which ruled that 2 Live Crew's unlicensed use of the bass line from Roy Orbison's song "Oh, Pretty Woman" could constitute fair use even though the work was a commercial use, and extends that principle from songs to novels. It is binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit.

Mitchell's estate chose to drop the suit after publisher Houghton agreed to make a donation to Morehouse College.^[1]

References

External links

• Text of the case
• Locating Copyright Within the First Amendment Skein by N. W. Netanel 54 Stanford Law Review 101