Star Trek/Dr. Seuss Mashup Book Ordered to Cease Distribution After Copyright Dispute

A settlement between Dr. Seuss Enterprises and ComicMix means the Star Trek spoof Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go! will no longer be distributed.

The five-year mission to bring Oh, The Places You’ll Boldly Go! to readers — an indie Star Trek comic rendered in the style of the works of Dr. Seuss — comes to an end with a settlement that means it won’t be distributed at all.

The settlement enjoins publisher ComicMix from distributing the comic, a spoof of famed children’s book author Theodor Seuss Geisel’s Oh, The Places You’ll Go. In turn, Geisel’s estate, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, will drop efforts to collect damages, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

RELATED: Star Trek: Why the Original Series Was Canceled

Dr. Seuss Enterprises sued to block the Kickstarter campaign for the project in 2016, naming author David Gerrold, artist Ty Templeton and editor Glenn Hauman, ComicMix’s vice president. The suit alleged that ComicMix had infringed on Seuss’ intellectual property, but a federal district court ruled in ComicMix’s favor on the trademark claims in 2018 and the copyright claims in 2019.

However, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in December that “Although ComicMix’s work need not boldly go where no one has gone before, its repackaging, copying, and lack of critique of Seuss, coupled with its commercial use of Go!, do not result in a transformative use.” After that, ComicMix failed to get a summary judgment ruling in district court on whether Dr. Seuss Enterprises had proven copyright infringement.

KEEP READING: LeVar Burton Defends Dr. Seuss, Calls ‘Cancel Culture’ a Misnomer

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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