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110 Va. L. Rev. Online 1 (2024)

handle is hein.journals/inbrf110 and id is 1 raw text is: COPYRIGHT © 2024 CATHAY Y. N. SMITH VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW ONLINE VOLUME 110 JANUARY 2024 1-19 ESSAY EDITING CLASSIC BOOKS: A THREAT TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN? Cathay Y. N. Smith* Over the past few years, there has been a growing trend in the publishing industry of hiring sensitivity readers to review books for offensive tropes or racial, gender, or sexual stereotypes. In February 2023, for instance, reports thatPuffin Books had edited several classics by Roald Dahl in consultation with sensitivity readers generated immediate backlashfrom the public and several renowned authors and politicians. While most of that backlash focused on accusations of censorship and cancel culture, this Essay examines an actual legal consequence of revising classic books: the creation of copyrightable derivative works in updated editions. Derivative works are new works based on or built off of preexisting works. The creator of a derivative work can obtain copyright protection by adding sufficient original expression to the preexisting work. The creation of derivative works, especially from public domain works, is generally encouraged because derivative works canfoster creativity, disseminate culture and knowledge, and allow original works to reach new * Professor of Law, University of Montana Blewett School of Law; 2022-2023 Visiting Research Fellow, Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre, University of Oxford. Many thanks to participants at the University of Glasgow CREATe Public Lecture Series and the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre Invited Speaker Series for their comments on the issues in this Essay. Special thanks to Van Anh Le, Marta Iljadica, Laura A. Heymann, and the wonderful editors at the Virginia Law Review, including Briana Monet Woody. 1