March 29, 2000: SAMPLE EXAM ESSAY QUESTION 1
COPYRIGHT LAW 2000
SAMPLE ESSAY QUESTION
You are required to prepare a written an answer to this sample essay exam question. Please do not take more than ½ hour to do the question. You should type or word process your answer. Please do not put your name on your answer but write an identification number on the top so that you can identify your answer when I hand it back to you. Your answer is due in class on Monday April 3, 2000. We will review the question in class on Wednesday, April 5, 2000.
Recommended Time: 30 minutes
Leslie A. Kurtz has written, in an article entitled "The Independent Legal Lives of Fictional Characters", 1986 Wis. L. Rev. 429: "Neither of the two major tests used by the courts in dealing with literary characters, the Sam Spade standard or the test derived from the Nichols case, provides a good basis for distinguishing situations where copyright exists from situations where it does not."
Please (a) compare and contrast the merits and drawbacks of these two major tests for determining whether literary characters are copyrightable independent of the works in which they appear, and (b) advocate the test which, in your view, should be applied by U.S. courts to determine whether a literary character is independently copyrightable. Your suggested test may be different than the two major tests referred to by Kurtz. Creative thinking and thoughtful, well-written analysis will be rewarded.