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Monster Magazine Covers in Biography Are Fair Use

By Shannon P. Duffy
August 27, 2009

In the movies, it seems that monsters are always up to no good ' making mayhem or setting fires. But in a federal court in Philadelphia recently, a couple dozen movie monsters made some important new law and set a few significant precedents in the area of copyrights and trademarks that may help to define the doctrine of fair use for years to come.

In Warren Publishing Co. v. Spurlock, 08-3399, the publisher of several popular movie monster magazines from the 1950s and 1960s claimed that its copyrights and trademarks were violated by a recently published book that chronicles the art of a man whose paintings appeared on more than 50 of its magazine covers. But lawyers for J. David Spurlock and Vanguard Productions ' the publishers of the book, Famous Monster Movie Art of Basil Gogos (www.amazon.com/Famous-Monster-Movie-Basil-Gogos/dp/1887591710) ' argued that their inclusion of the magazine covers was protected by the fair use doctrine because the main purpose of the book was to celebrate the art of Gogos, a purpose far different from the goal that the magazine publisher had.

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