Warren Publishing is the company behind such classic horror magazines like Creepy, Eerie, and Famous Monsters of Filmland. In the recent case of Warren Publishing Co. v. Spurlock, Warren Publishing was on the losing end of a copyright dispute involving covers from some of its magazines.

The artwork of Basil Gogos appeared on the cover of at least 50 issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland as well as covers of a few issues of Eerie and Creepy. David Spurlock and Vanguard Productions published a book entitled Famous Monster Movie Art of Basil Gogos that reproduced 24 of these covers, 10 of which were portrayed as covers, and 14 of which appeared without any Warren magazine text.

In response to the book’s publication, Warren brought an action for copyright and trademark infringement. Spurlock successfully presented a fair use defense to the Warren’s copyright. Of great significance was the court’s reasoning as to the first factor in the four-part fair use analysis under 17 U.S.C. § 107: the purpose and character of the work. Here, the judge found that Spurlock’s uses of the covers was transformative since the the Gogos book presented the images for an entirely different purpose than the Warren magazines (i.e., using the covers to sell magazines versus using the illustrations for a biography or career retrospective).

1. Warren v. Spurlock opinion