Great news! You can duct-tape a banana to the wall!

Why? Because the court ruled that duct-taping a banana to the wall is not protected IP!

🍌 2️⃣ 🍌This is part two of my video series about duct taping bananas to the wall and copyright law. Make sure to check out part one if you haven’t seen it yet!

❓ Why did the court rule that Cattelan's duct taped banana to the wall did not infringe the registered copyright for Morford’s duct taped banana to the wall?

A couple of reasons.

The Court considered whether there is “legal” or “factual” copying.

Let’s start with “legal copying.” Legal copying is a fancy way of asking whether the copied elements are “protected expression.”

💡 Remember, ideas aren’t copyrightable. Only the expression of the idea.

The court applied the “Abstraction-filtration-comparison,” test. That's a mouthful. 👄

I’ll talk about that test in more detail in the coming weeks, as that’s the framework you can use to try to determine whether a video game is violating another game’s copyright. 🎮

Here, the court began comparing the component pieces of the two artworks, starting with the bananas.

🍌 You’ve got a whole banana crossed with perpendicular tape. The court noted that this is one of only a few ways that one could effectively tape a banana to the wall without obscuring the banana.

Why does this matter?

Because of the legal doctrine called “merger.” Where the expression of the idea can only be done in so few ways, the concept and the expression of the concept, “merge.” When that happens the expression isn’t copyrightable.

👨‍⚖️ So here, the court said that taping the banana to the wall isn’t copyrightable.

After removing the taped bananas from the comparison, the court ruled that two works are not substantially similar. And therefore, there was no copyright infringement.

I’ll cover the court's “factual” copying analysis next time.

PS: 🔊 Sound on for the full video experience! 🎼
#videogamelaw #copyright