The year 2031 would have been a simpler year to publish The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall,mentioned in Carroll and Ginsburg; it would be when Gone With the Wind would lose its copyright and enter the public domain.

Ultimately, Houghton Mifflin Co did publish the book in 2001–and has since sold 150,000 hardcover copies of the book and 60,000 copies in paper–after a second time when the Mitchell estate later settled. Copies of the book continue to have “The Unauthorized Parody” label since it was ruled to have been a legitimate use of political parody.

Now, my point isn’t just about the amount of parody/text a book can legally get away with, but rather the idea of making a new story out of an old. Plus, I’m sure there have been school assignments and essays about alternate perspectives that infringement on copyrights. And seriously, what about all those fanfics?  Everything is a newer version of an old story. Why don’t the copyright intentions of encouraging derivative works align with how much its laws are used as creating new infringement cases? Indeed, as Ginsburg says, this makes “copyright owners look not only power-hungry, but exceedingly humorless.”

I was only thinking about this because it reminds me of this year’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. Try arguing the importance of cultural icons like O’Hara when Jane Austen’s work has been revamped with zombies, successfully. It’s safe since Jane Austen’s works have been in the public domain for decades now, but what if she had written it only recently?

Now books like Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters are in the works (with a movie for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and I see that it is a positive way to make classic literature enjoyed by the young and an excellent starting board for new creative works like I just listed.

It’s like this all is just a waiting game for works to enter the public domain so someone can make a good full-blown parody without being accused of infringement. The Wind Done Gone seems like a good idea for everyone except for the Margaret Mitchell estate, understandably, but this just shows how difficult it is to make a fair use case apply to everything. Every piece of work needs individual attention, which we can see is nearly impossible. How much creativity is being suffocated? Is it all about the reputation of the original character?

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