West Wing, Sappy Speeches, and Fair Use

University of Chicago Faculty Blog: University of Chicago Law Prof. Randy Picker has taken a look at a situation where a television segment borrowed phrases from another television show. In particular, Picker considers what this event means in terms of both plagiarism and fair use analysis:

For those of us who are West Wing watchers—my wife and I netflix it and just started season 6—[the copied line] immediately resonates. Fictional President Jed Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, delivered that line in an end-of-episode speech, a line written by heartthrob speech-writer—this is fiction remember—Sam Seaborn, played by Rob Lowe. The NYT also quotes a second line read by Hammond and matches that with corresponding text from West Wing.

NBC has already conceded the plagiarism and has said that it will no longer accept work from the responsible freelance writer. Last week, I raised the question of the relationship between plagiarism and copyright’s fair use doctrine. What should we think of this situation?

(Click Here to Read the Post)