Literary characters and copyright protection: the Pippi Longstocking case
The plaintiff in this case asserted itself the rightful owner of all copyrights concerning the literary works of Astrid Lindgren, the Swedish author of works such as Pippi Longstocking, Emil and The Brothers Lionheart. In this case, the plaintiff claimed copyright protection for the literary character of Pippi Longstocking against a picture, used in order to advertise a costume of a girl that—as the plaintiff asserted—showed the outward features of the character.
These features were red hair with pigtails and stockings of different colours or patterns, similar to how the character was described in the books by Lindgren, so the plaintiff said. The defendant was a well-known discount shop with stores all over Germany.
"The protection can be based on the distinctive traits, and therefore also on the outward appearance of the character, if that was part of the story."
Both the Cologne District Court and the Cologne Court of Appeal sentenced the defendant for copyright infringement through the advertising and the delivery of costumes showing the Pippi Longstocking character.
The Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe has now reversed these judgments and has denied copyright protection against the costume and the advertising for it. It has, however, remanded the case back to the second instance court in order to clarify whether the plaintiff could assert claims of unfair competition.
In reversing the judgment, the Federal Supreme Court first confirmed that the literary character of Pippi Longstocking was generally capable of enjoying copyright protection as a work of language. It confirmed its own body of case law on this point saying that a literary figure may enjoy such protection if it had distinctive traits of character and appearance in accordance with the story of the work.
That means that the protection can be based on the distinctive traits, and therefore also on the outward appearance of the character, if that was part of the story and contributed to the character’s role and relations in the work. In the case at hand, the Federal Supreme Court denied that the character of Pippi had been copied so as to infringe the copyright for this character.
The Supreme Court held that the copyright to such a character is not infringed if only some of the traits are shown in a picture, or are advertised in the form of a costume, when some main traits are left out.
Jens Künzel, LLM, is a partner at Krieger Mes & Graf v. Der Groeben. He can be contacted at: jens.kuenzel@krieger-mes.de
