Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons^™

Inside Out, Upside Down: Circuit Court Confusion Over Character Copyrightability, Caitlin E. Oh

Emory Law Journal

Enormous amounts of new content are posted on social media every day. Ordinarily, if a work is original and created by the author, the work is automatically protected under copyright without the need for registration. However, in recent years, copyright protection has become difficult to obtain for one type of expression: fictional characters.

Today, characters hold immense cultural significance. For some, characters provide an escape from reality, entertainment, and, in some cases, a blueprint to which one can aspire. For entertainment studios, characters hold immense economic value. If a character is popular—holding cultural significance—a studio might create a prequel or …