In copyright law the principle that certain elements of a work are not protected when they are mandated by, or customary to, the genre.

For example a spy novel is expected to contain elements such as numbered swiss bank accounts, a beautiful femme fatale, and various sorts of gimmick gadgets hidden in wrist watches, belts, shoes or other personal effects. These elements are not protected by copyright, though specific sequences and compositions of them can be.

History

One of the significant cases in U.S. jurisprudence where scenes à faire was upheld as an affirmative defense was in "Ets-Hokin vs. Skyy Spirits, Inc., et. al." (United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, March 14, 2003) where a commercial photographer, Joshua Ets-Hokin sued the makers of Skyy vodka when another photographer created advertisements with a substantially similar appearance to work he'd done for them in the past.

External Links

• http://www.ivanhoffman.com/scenes.html
• http://www.patenting-art.com/decision/skyysp03.htm
• http://www.metnews.com/articles/skyy031703.htm
• http://www.benedict.com/Visual/raiders/raiders.aspx
• http://www.jaeckle.com/Articles.asp?ID=42
• http://www.shk-dplc.com/cfo/articles/litigate.htm
• http://marcebrown.com/publications/New%20Case.htm
• http://www.ip-surveys.com/_disc3/00000007.htm