Moore made a political satire documentary, named it using paraphrase of a popular political satire book title. Without writer permission. And it is perfect.

By your logic I will be completely all right naming a children movie "Garry Dotter". A movie about child drawing dots on walls, eh?

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To give a serious and long answer, there are two aspects here: law and ethics.

Law: "Farenheit 451" is not trademarkable as a phrase, neither there is a way to copyright it as the title (as opposed to the book itself). The title consists of a name of a person (as well as an allusion to the unit of measurement of temperature) and a number.

I do not see, how one can possibly complain that from the point of view of existing law, Moore is in the wrong.

Ethics Yes, "Farenheight 9/11" clearly alludes to the Bradbury's title. Your question is basically whether it is ethical for Moore to have used the phrase "Farenheight 9/11" without Bradury's permission.

I will say, that it would have been good if Moore had requested one and gotten it. As a courtesy. However, I do not see even an ethical problem with it. My key thought is, where do you draw the line?

Is ""Celicium 9/11" allowed? How about "Kelvin 9/11" or ,let us say, "Newton 9/11"? One can argue that a clear parallel with Bradbury's title exists in each of the cases. More examples: should Bradbury be concerned about people calling their books "Dandelion salad" or "Amber Chronicles"? From a completely different area, should Pink Floyd worry about a band that calls itself Anderson Council? (in the latter question there is actually a copyright issue, and btw, the band Anderson Council does exist).
Should George Orwell's estate contact Voinovich about the "Moscow, 2042" title?

What you might see as stealing, I see as an homage. Homage does not require permission from the party that is being homaged.

Now,


>By your logic I will be completely all right naming a children movie >"Garry Dotter".

Two points: (i) isn't there something like this already in existance? Some Russian-language lit about a girl? (ii) I am absolutely sure that the name "Harry Potter", the likeness, and the storylines are copyrighted and the important parts are also trademarked. Call your character "Garry Dotter" in a setting similar to the original and you have lawsuit waiting to happen. But if you have a character named "Garry Dotter" in a situation where you can claim fair use (minor character, parody, homage), you can use the name.

I am sure there exist plenty of books in the world where character names (John Smith, Jack Brown, Ivan Petrov) coincide. There are lots of books, musical albums, songs, movies etc... with similar or identical titles. The world is not going to end because of it.

In his original title, Bradbury has used the name of another person, which also serves as the unit of measurement of temperature. You are not going to argue that he should have asked permission to use it from the Farenheight estate and from the Chamber of Measures or American Society of Physicists... Are you?

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Well argued

My key thought is, where do you draw the line?

I should admit that you are right and Moore's movie don't violate professional copyright ethics. In both - its letter and its spirit.

What you might see as stealing, I see as an homage.

Still, in my not at all humble opinion, it do violates a human ethics. I don't see this episode as a question of courtesy. I see it as dishonest manipulation, as immoral sucking on someone else fame and deeds. As exploitation. Very little exploitation. But absolutely normal for Moore

For those who see Moore as a hero it isn't so. But I will stake my ethernal life on a claim that Moore is both - a horrible human being and a horrible artist.

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"Exploitation" is a hard term to define here. Whatever you or I think, there exists the exact set of motivations that moved Moore to name his movie Farenheight 9/11. Both of us are making educated guesses about his motivation, but they are just that - guesses. Judgement calls.


I have no idea what kind of human being Moore is. I am not sure it matters. I do not know if he is a horrible artist. I do not see him as such, but this is a matter of personal tastes, which, we know, differ. He is controvercial at the mildest. His work has one very important property: he gets his point across. He does not pull his punches.

It all seems to boil down to the question of whether one agrees with his personal politics. I do, at this point of his and my visions of the world. As I mentioned, I will go see it the moment it comes out.

Having said this, I will admit that I do not expect that I will agree with every single aspect of that movie and/or every single point he is making there. At the same time, I do not need Moore to tell me what is going to be wrong with four more years of Bush (for at least two reasons). At the same time, there are other people who might need just that.

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Personally I am glad of one thing. That the movie is not called "Exodus". And that I am spared the joy of Moore propagating my own believes.

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I might be missing something here... Why are you glad that the movie is not called "Exodous"?

[1] Bob Marley

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