It would still be transformative use, no? Grant v. Trump maybe wouldn’t be as comparable when it’s slop-generated for example? But I’m not good at US laws.
If being transformative was the only test copyright would be pretty toothless, you could use any copyrighted characters you want as long as you told a new story.
Non-profit, educational, research, criticism, or news reporting; those are the categories that transformative use applies most to. Though for highly creative works (like an original character e.g. Franklin) even those categories are restricted.
The biggest test though is negative market factor. If the publisher can demonstrate it could damage their brand that is enough. Frankly this seems pretty obvious in this case, who wants to read about a fascist turtle?
It would still be transformative use, no? Grant v. Trump maybe wouldn’t be as comparable when it’s slop-generated for example? But I’m not good at US laws.
If being transformative was the only test copyright would be pretty toothless, you could use any copyrighted characters you want as long as you told a new story.
Non-profit, educational, research, criticism, or news reporting; those are the categories that transformative use applies most to. Though for highly creative works (like an original character e.g. Franklin) even those categories are restricted.
The biggest test though is negative market factor. If the publisher can demonstrate it could damage their brand that is enough. Frankly this seems pretty obvious in this case, who wants to read about a fascist turtle?