Salinger v. Colting

J.D. Salinger (plaintiff) held the copyright in The Catcher in the Rye and its main character, Holden Caulfield; Fredrik Colting (defendant) published 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, featuring a 76-year-old character sharing many of Holden's traits and quirks, set partly in identical locations from the original, and marketed by some reviewers as a sequel. Salinger sued for copyright infringement and sought a preliminary injunction; the district court found Salinger likely to succeed on the merits and, based solely on that finding, presumed he would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction, which it then granted. Colting appealed, arguing eBay Inc. v. MercExchange forbade presuming irreparable harm from a likelihood of success alone.