Stock characters and stories borrowed from popular sitcom don't amount to copyright infringement
An off-Broadway play that seems to be inspired by the ABC sitcom Three’s Company does not infringe on the popular show’s copyright, a New York federal judge ruled earlier this week.
The Southern District of New York action was brought by playwright David Adjmi, the New York Times reports. He received a cease-and-desist letter from DLT Entertainment in 2012, when the play, 3C, opened at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.
Adjmi decided to sue, according to the article, because the threat of litigation kept him from licensing the play for other productions or publishing the script.
Like the TV show, Adjmi’s play features two women and one man, all of whom are platonic roommates. However, 3C includes profanities and sexual situations, according to the New York Times, which wouldn’t have been allowed on network television while Three’s Company was on the air from 1977 to 1984.
Judge Loretta A. Preska found that while the play appropriated much material from the sitcom, it was a “highly transformative parody of the television series,” and unlikely to harm market potential of the sitcom.
The March 31 opinion describes various plots from the sitcom, which centered on the hijinks between characters Crissy, Janet and Jack, along with their friends, neighbors and romantic interests.
“Three’s Company is certainly a creative, even groundbreaking, work. But that originality is less in the creation of new elements than in mixing familiar tropes together in novel ways,” Preska wrote. “A ditzy blonde (Chrissy), a down-to-earth-brunette (Janet), a clumsy charmer (Jack) and old-generation landlords, among others, are stock characters to some extent.”
In a statement released April 1, DLT Entertainment said it will be reviewing its options, the article reports.
