Swedish Author Appeals Injunction in Catcher in the Rye Case

Posted on July 24, 2009

Attorneys for the Swedish author who wrote a sequel to J.D. Salinger's classic The Catcher in the Rye have appealed a lower court's ruling stopping publication of the book in the U.S. pending the outcome of a trial on the matter.

Lawyers for Swedish author Fredrik Colting and his U.S. distributor, SCB Distribution filed an appeal on July 23 with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that a July 1 injunction barring publication of Colting's 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, is an "impermissible prior restraint and an unwarranted extension" of copyright protection. "Without a shred of evidence of harm, the Plaintiff, the District Court has taken the extraordinary step of enjoining the publication of the book," court documents read. "But [the book] is a complex and undeniably transformative comment on one of our nation's most famous authors, J.D. Salinger, his best known creation, Holden Caulfield, and his most celebrated work, The Catcher in the Rye."
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On July 1, District Court judge Deborah Batts ruled that author Salinger was "likely to succeed on the merits of [his] copyright case," and issued a preliminary injunction barring the publication of what Salinger's attorneys called an unauthorized sequel to The Catcher in the Rye. In her decision, Batts ruled that Colting's 60 Years Later would harm the market for "sequels and other derivative works" from Salinger. "While the court does find some limited transformative character in 60 Years Later," her order read, Batts concluded that �the alleged parodic content is not reasonably perceivable, and the limited non-parodic transformative content is unlikely to overcome the obvious commercial nature of the work."

We're a bit surprised that the Swedish author is taking this so far. The new book clearly infringes on the copyright of J.D. Salinger. It's not a parody, the judge ruled, which pretty much knocks out the author's best argument. The appeal offers up six arguments for reversing the lower court's ruling, but we're not buying any of them. We hope the appellate court rules for Salinger.

If the injunction is left in place, a jury will decide whether the new book violates Salinger's copyright. Allowing the book to be published before the case is heard could make the case moot.