Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin
Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin (2001) was decided by the United States
11th Circuit Court of Appeals (Alabama, Florida, and Georgia) against the owner of
Gone With the Wind, vacating an injunction prohibiting the publisher of
The Wind Done Gone from distributing the book. 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. As such, it upholds the previous supreme court decision in
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music 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.
The reasoning of the case is also significant as it is the first time an federal appellate court in the United States has invoked the First Amendment of the United States Constitution as a basis for the protection of fair use.
External links