Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin

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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) per curiam, 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. Some say that this case stands for the principle that the creation and publication of a carefully-written parody novel in the United States counts as fair use. However, publisher Houghton paid a substantial settlement, prompted by the findings of both the District Court and the Appeals Court that Randall's copying was excessive. The Mitchell heirs lost only in the sense that they were unable to enjoin publication, yet the Court recognized that they had suffered a “harm [that] can adequately be remedied through an award of monetary damages.” 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" constituted fair use under copyright law and extends that principle from songs to novels and is binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit.

(References: “Mitchell Estate Settles ‘Gone With the Wind’ Suit,” The New York Times May 10, 2002; “Settlement reached over ‘Wind Done Gone,’” The Associated Press, May 10, 2002.)

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