A New York Times story by Edward Wyatt reports on the belated lawsuit by Pearson Education, the publishing company that owns the copyright to the Dick and Jane primers, against a division of Time Warner in Federal District Court in Los Angeles claiming that the book Yiddish With Dick and Jane violates Pearson’s copyrights and trademarks.
The brisk-selling book examines adultery, drug use and other tsuris that afflict Dick and Jane as adults. When it was published in September by Little, Brown & Company, part of the Time Warner Book Group, Pearson was farmisht and did not take any action. After an Internet video promotion of the book began attracting hundreds of thousands of viewers and the book’s sales topped 100,000, however, Pearson decided that the fun was over.
The book, by Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman, with illustrations by Gabi Payn, states on the front and back covers, spine and copyright page that it is a parody. But the lawsuit says the book “is not a parody, but is an unprotected imitation” because it does not use the copyrighted characters “for the purpose of social criticism.”…
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