 To Read or Not to Read by Oscar Wilde. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. To Read or Not to Read, Palmao Gazette, February 8th, 1886. Books I fancy may be conveniently divided into three classes. 1. Books to Read, such as Cicero's Letters, Suetonius, Vasari's Lives of the Painters, the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, Sir John Mandeville, Marco Polo, St. Simon's Memoirs, Momsen, and, Till We Get a Better One, Groats History of Greece. 2. Books to Reread, such as Plato and Keats, In the Sphere of Poetry, the Masters, not the Minstrels, In the Sphere of Philosophy, the Seers, not the Savants. 3. Books not to Read at All, such as Thompson's Seasons, Roger's Italy, Paley's Evidences, All the Fathers except St. Augustine, All John Stuart Mill except the Essay on Liberty, All Voltaire's Plays without any exception, Butler's Analogy, Grant's Aristotle, Hume's England, Loses History of Philosophy, All Argumentative Books and All Books that Try to Prove Anything. The third class is by far the most important. To tell people what to read is, as a rule, either useless or harmful, for the appreciation of literature is a question of temperament, not of teaching. To Parnassus there is no primer, and nothing that one can learn is ever worth learning. But to tell people what not to read is a very different matter, and I venture to recommend it as a mission to the University Extension Scheme. Indeed it is one that is eminently needed in this age of ours, an age that reads so much, that it has no time to admire, and writes so much that it has no time to think. Whoever will select out of the chaos of our modern curricula, the worst hundred books, and publish a list of them, will confer on the rising generation a real and lasting benefit. After expressing these views, I suppose I should not offer any suggestions at all with regard to the best hundred books, but I hope you will allow me the pleasure of being inconsistent, as I am anxious to put it in a claim for a book that has been strangely omitted by most of the excellent judges that have contributed to your columns. I mean the Greek anthology. The beautiful poems contained in this collection seem to me to hold the same position with regard to Greek dramatic literature, as do the delicate little figurines of Tanagra to the Fidean marbles, and to be quite as necessary for the complete understanding of the Greek spirit. I am also amazed to find that Edgar Allan Poe has been passed over. Surely this marvelous lord of rhythmic expression deserves a place. If in order to make room for him it should be necessary to elbow out someone else, I should elbow out Southie, and I think that Baudelaire might be most adventagiously substituted for Kebel. No doubt, both in the curse of Kahama and in the Christian year there are poetic qualities of a certain kind, but absolute catholicity of taste is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art. End of To Read or Not to Read by Oscar Wilde. Read by Colleen McMahon. This interlocutory appeal involves the validity of a copyright in a full-body banana costume. Appellant kangaroo manufacturing ink concedes that the banana costume it manufactures and sells is substantially similar to the banana costume created and sold by appellee Rasta Impasta. Yet kangaroo claims that Rasta cannot hold a valid copyright in such a costume's quote, pictorial, graphic, and sculptural features under Title 17 U.S. Code section 101. This dispute presents a matter of first impression for our court and requires us to apply the Supreme Court's recent decision in Star Athletica LLC versus Varsity Brands Inc. We hold that, in combination, the Rasta costume's non-utilitarian sculptural features are copyrightable, so we will affirm the district court's preliminary injunction. Section 1 This dispute stems from a business relationship that went bad. In 2010, Rasta obtained copyright registration number VA1-707-439 for its full-body banana costume. Two years later, Rasta began working with a company called Yaguzan Incorporated, which purchased and resold thousands of Rasta's banana costumes. Yaguzan's founder, Justin Legheri, also founded Kangaroo, and at all relevant times was aware of Rasta's copyright registration in the banana costume. After the business relationship between Rasta and Yaguzan ended, Rasta's CEO, Robert Berman, discovered Kangaroo selling a costume that resembled his company's without a license. Rasta sued Kangaroo for copyright infringement, trade dress infringement, and unfair competition. After settlement discussions were unsuccessful, Rasta moved for a preliminary injunction and Kangaroo responded by moving to dismiss. The district court granted the motion for a preliminary injunction and explained its reasons for doing so in a thorough opinion. It also dismissed the unfair competition count. Kangaroo appealed, but because the district court had not entered in order detailing the injunction's terms, we granted the party's motions to remand for the limited purpose of entering a corrected order. The district court amended its order and the injunction is now ripe for review on appeal. Section 2. The district court had jurisdiction under Title 28, United States Code, Section 1331 and 1338A. We have jurisdiction under Title 28, United States Code, Section 1292A1. We review the district court's conclusions of law de Novo and its ultimate decision to grant the preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion. Footnote. Kangaroo argues that the district court erred by failing to apply the heightened mandatory injunction standard. We disagree for the reasons the district court articulated. Rasta's motion for a preliminary injunction did not request all or substantially all of its relief in a way that the relief could not later be undone. In Rasta's preliminary injunction motion merely sought to maintain the status quo the parties agreed to in their stipulation of standstill. End of footnote. Section 3. Kangaroo claims the injunction should not have issued because Rasta is not likely to succeed on the merits of its copyright infringement claim. Footnote. The other three prerequisites for injunctive relief are not at issue. End of footnote. According to Kangaroo, Rasta does not hold a valid copyright in its banana costume. Whether Rasta's copyright is valid is a question of law, which makes our review plenary. Footnote. Registering a work's copyright within five years of the work's first publication entitles the holder to a presumption of validity. C. Title 17, United States Code, Section 410C. A later filed registration may still be probative, though. Here, Rasta's certificate of registration lists a 2001 first publication date and a 2010 registration date, so it is not entitled to the statutory presumption of validity, though we may consider the registration's existence in our analysis. End of footnote. And we must remain, quote, cognizant of the Supreme Court's teachings that copyrights protect only expressions of ideas and not ideas themselves, end quote. We begin by analyzing whether non-utilitarian sculptural features of the costume are copyrightable by determining whether those features can be identified separately from its utilitarian features and are capable of existing independently from its utilitarian features. C. Title 17, United States Code, Section 101, and Star Athletica. We then consider whether the merger and sent affair doctrines render the costume ineligible for copyright protection. We conclude that the district court did not air when it held that Rasta is reasonably likely to prove ownership of a valid copyright. Section 3A, quote, a valid copyright extends only to copyrightable subject matter, end quote. Copyrightable subject matter means, quote, original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, end quote. Originality is a very low bar, requiring, quote, only a minimal amount of creativity, end quote, quote, works of authorship include pictorial graphic and sculptural works, end quote, which are, quote, two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of fine graphic and applied art, et cetera, end quote, quote, and a work of authorship is subquote fixed in a tangible medium of expression when it is embodied in a end of subquote, subquote, material object, from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, end of subquote, end quote. A special rule applies to useful articles, i.e., those which have, quote, an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information, end quote. Without more, they may not receive protection as such. Instead, useful articles that, quote, incorporate pictorial graphic or sculptural features that can be identified separately from and are capable of existing independently of the utilitarian aspects of the article, end quote, may be eligible for protection of those features alone. Thus, separability analysis determines whether a useful article contains copyrightable features. A useful article's design feature, quote, is eligible for copyright if, when identified and imagined apart from the useful article, it would qualify as a pictorial graphic or sculptural work, either on its own or when fixed in some other tangible medium, end quote. So we ask two questions. One, can the artistic feature of a useful article's design, quote, be perceived as a two or three-dimensional work of art separate from the useful article, end quote? And two, would the feature, quote, qualify as a protectable pictorial graphic or sculptural work, either on its own or in some other medium if imagined separately from the useful article, end quote? The first requirement, quote, is not onerous. The decision maker need only be able to look at the useful article and spot some two or three-dimensional element that appears to have pictorial graphic or sculptural qualities. The second requirement, which is, quote, ordinarily more difficult to satisfy, end quote, requires, quote, that the separately identified feature has the capacity to exist apart from the utilitarian aspects of the article, end quote. C star atletica, quote, in other words, the feature must be able to exist as its own pictorial graphic or sculptural work as defined in section 101, once it is imagined apart from the useful article, end quote. And that separate feature, quote, cannot itself be a useful article or subquote an article that is normally a part of a useful article, end of subquote, which is itself considered a useful article, end quote. We do not focus on, quote, any aspects of the useful article that remain after the imaginary extraction, end quote, nor does the work's marketability or artistic merit bear on our analysis. Thus, the two-part inquiry effectively turns on whether the separately imagined features are still intrinsically useful. We have explained that we do not analyze each feature in isolation, instead a, quote, specific combination of elements, end quote, that gives a sculpture its, quote, unique look, end quote, could be eligible for copyright protection. Those combined features may include, quote, texture, color, size, and shape, end quote, among others. And it, quote, means nothing that these elements may not be individually entitled to protection, end quote. The Supreme Court in Star Athletica found the two-dimensional design patterns on cheerleader uniforms eligible for copyright protection. The uniform's utilitarian, quote, shape, cut, and dimensions, end quote, were not copyrightable, but, quote, the two-dimensional work of art fixed in the tangible medium of the uniform fabric, end quote, was. Imagining those designs apart from the uniform did not necessarily replicate the useful article, even though the designs still looked like uniforms. The Star Athletica Court also provided helpful examples addressing three-dimensional articles. First, it reaffirmed its decision in Mazer, which held that a statuette depicting a dancer intended for use as a lamp base was eligible for copyright protection. Second, the court noted that a replica of a useful article, for example, a cardboard model car, could be copyrightable, although the underlying article, for example, the car itself, could not. Finally, the court noted that a shovel, quote, even if displayed in an art gallery, end quote, still has an intrinsic utilitarian function beyond portraying its appearance or conveying information. So it could not be copyrighted even though a drawing of a shovel or any separately identifiable artistic features could. We, too, have observed that, quote, just because a sculpture is incorporated into an article that functions as other than a pure sculpture does not mean that the sculptural part of the article is not copyrightable, end quote. Section 3b. Having articulated the legal principles that govern our analysis, we turn to the particular facts of this case. To begin with, Rasta's banana costume is a, quote, useful article, end quote. Footnote. We have noted that, quote, a costume may serve aside from its appearance to clothe the wearer. Star Athletica addressed cheerleader uniforms as useful articles, and Rasta concedes its costume is a useful article. End of footnote. The artistic features of the costume, in combination, prove both separable and capable of independent existence as a copyrightable work, a sculpture. Those sculptural features include the banana's combination of colors, lines, shape, and length. They do not include the cutout holes for the wearer's arms, legs, and face, the holes' dimensions, or the holes' locations on the costume, because those features are utilitarian. Footnote. The district court correctly found, quote, that the cutout holes are not, per se, a feature eligible for copyright, end quote, because they, quote, perform a solely utilitarian function, end quote. It went on, however, to list, quote, the location of the head and arm cutouts which dictate how the costume drapes on and protrudes from the wearer, as opposed to the mere existence of the cutout holes, end quote, among the copyrightable features. We disagree with that portion of the district court's analysis because we must imagine the banana apart from the useful, i.e., wearable, article. Rasta has not identified any artistic aspect to the holes' dimensions or locations, except in relation to the wearer. The cutout holes' dimensions and locations on the costume are intrinsically useful, perhaps even necessary, to make the costume wearable like the, quote, shape, cut, and dimensions, end quote, of the cheerleader uniforms in Star Athletica, so they cannot be copyrighted. End of footnote. Although more difficult to imagine separately from the costume's, quote, non-appearance-related utility, end quote, i.e., wearability, than many works, one can still imagine the banana apart from the costume as an original sculpture. That sculpted banana, once split from the costume, is not intrinsically utilitarian and does not merely replicate the costume, so it may be copyrighted. Kangaroo responds that we must inspect each feature individually, find each one, two unoriginal or two utilitarian, in isolation for copyright, and decline to protect the whole. But K. Barry forecloses this divide-and-conquer approach by training our focus on the combination of design elements in a work, and the Star Athletica court did not cherry-pick the uniform design's colors, shapes, or lines, it too evaluated their combination. Thus, the separately imagined banana, the sum of its non-utilitarian parts, is copyrightable. Kangaroo also contends the banana is unoriginal because its designers based the design on a natural banana. They ask us to hold that depictions of natural objects in their natural condition can never be copyrighted. This argument seeks to raise the originality requirements very low bar, which president forecloses for good reason. A judge's own aesthetic judgments must play no role in the copyright analysis. See Star Athletica, quote, our inquiry is limited to how the article and features are perceived, not how or why they were designed, end quote. The cases Kangaroo cites in its brief confirm that whether natural objects are copyrightable depends on the circumstances. Compare Sotava V. Lowry holding that a sculpture of a jellyfish was not copyrightable with Kokiko Inc. V. Rodriguez Miranda holding that several elements of a plush toy depicting a tree frog were copyrightable. The essential question is whether the depiction of the natural object has a minimal level of creativity. Rasta's banana meets those requirements. In furtherance of its argument that costumes depicting items found in nature can never be copyrighted, Kangaroo relies on Whimsicality Inc. V. Ruby's Costume Co. Whimsicality involved a company's misrepresentation of its costumes as only, quote, soft sculpture, end quote, on its application for copyright registration without any indication, written or pictorial, that they could be worn. See Whimsicality. Unlike that case, here the Copyright Office recognized that Rasta sought to copyright a costume and initially refused to register a copyright because it was a costume. Additionally, the Whimsicality Court imagined the costumes peeled away from their wearers as deflated piles of fabric, leaving nothing recognizable or original to copyright. Star Athletica does not allow that approach in this appeal. The three-dimensional banana sculpture that separability analysis requires us to imagine is not a carpled pile of fabric. It is a recognizable rendering of a banana. Courts have not, as Kangaroo claims, quote, consistently found that costumes of natural items, such as bees and pumpkins, cannot be copyrighted, end quote. See also Animal Fair Inc. V. M. Fesco Industries, finding a slipper in the shape of a bear's paw copyrightable. Indeed, the Second Circuit focused its decision on Whimsicality's misrepresentation to the Copyright Office and did not even reach the question whether costumes are an exception to the general rule that clothing is not copyrightable. In our view, the non-utilitarian sculptural features of this costume are just such an exception. Footnote. Kangaroo's reliance on the underlying District Court decision in Whimsicality is also misplaced because that decision, though carefully reasoned, employed a separability analysis inconsistent with the analysis required by Star Athletica. End of footnote. We therefore hold that the banana costume's combination of colors, lines, shape, and length, i.e. its artistic features, are both separable and capable of independent existence, and thus are copyrightable. Section 3C. Lastly, Kangaroo invokes two copyright doctrines, Merger and Santa Fair, to argue that the banana costume is ineligible for protection. Both arguments address the same question, whether copyrighting the banana costume would effectively monopolize an underlying idea, either directly or through elements necessary to that idea's expression. Because Congress has excluded, quote, any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, end quote, from copyright protection, courts deny such protection when a work's underlying idea can effectively be expressed in only one way. Courts term this rare occurrence, quote, unquote, Merger, and find it only when, quote, there are no or few other ways of expressing a particular idea. And if copyrighting a design feature would effectively monopolize an underlying idea, procedure, process, etc., then the Merger doctrine exists to deny that protection. Notably, Merger, quote, is most applicable where the idea and the expression are of items found in nature, or are found commonly in everyday life, end quote. But if copyright does not foreclose, quote, other methods of expressing an idea, as a practical matter, then there is no merger, end quote. Here, copyrighting Rasta's banana costume would not effectively monopolize the underlying idea, because there are many other ways to make a costume resemble a banana. Indeed, Rasta provided over 20 non-infringing examples. As the district court observed, one can easily distinguish those examples from Rasta's costume based on the shape, curvature, tips, tips color, overall color, length, width, lining, texture, and material. We agree and hold the merger doctrine does not apply here. Courts also exclude Senate Fair from copyright protection, which includes elements, quote, standard, stock, or common to a particular topic, or that necessarily follow from a common theme or setting, end quote. The doctrine covers, quote, those elements of a work that necessarily result from external factors inherent to the subject matter of the work, end quote. As with merger, the Senate Fair doctrine seeks to curb copyright's potential to allow monopolizing an underlying idea via features that are so common or necessary to that idea's expression that copyrighting them effectively copyrights the idea itself. For example, Mitel Inc. v Ictel Inc., citing foot chases as a Senate Fair of police fiction. Here, too, copyrighting the banana costume's non-utilitarian features, in combination, would not threaten such monopolization. Kangaroo points to no specific feature that necessarily results from the costume subject matter, a banana. Although a banana costume is likely to be yellow, it could be any shade of yellow, or green, or brown for that matter. Although a banana costume is likely to be curved, it need not be, let alone in any particular manner. And although a banana costume is likely to have ends that resemble a natural banana's, those tips need not look like Rasta's black tips, in color, shape, or size. Again, the record includes over 20 examples of banana costumes that Rasta concedes would be non-infringing. The Senate Fair doctrine does not apply here, either. Because Rasta established a reasonable likelihood that it could prove the entitlement to protection for the veritable fruits of its intellectual labor, we will affirm. End of Silver Top Associates Inc. v Kangaroo Manufacturing Inc. The Zimmerman Telegram by Arthur Zimmerman. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. From 2nd From London, No. 5747 We intend to begin on the 1st of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis. Make war together, make peace together. Generous financial support, and an understanding on our part, that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform the president of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain, and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence, and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the president's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace. Signed Zimmerman, End of the Zimmerman Telegram by Arthur Zimmerman