Dr. Seuss children's book gets parodied, and the fair use doctrine gets a real test

There is a case before the Ninth Circuit, where “Dr. Seuss Enterprises” sued the authors of a parody book, “Oh the Places You’ll Boldly Go”, created by ComicMix, a parody which maps some Dr. Seuss characters to Star Trek characters with an interplanetary setting, with a title that seems to mock the original “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.”

I couldn’t find the derivative book on Amazon.

The idea sounds tempting enough in the world of children’s books, but I had always thought there wasn’t much question that derivative or parody books are fair use.  People who “have to make a living” with writing might well consider something like this.

Electronic Frontier Foundation has an amicus brief and explanation here. 

There is a Burning Man parody of the book being read, on YouTube. 

Picture: Burning Man exhibit at Renwick Exhibit in Washington DC, 2018