&gt; On one hand a court decision would solve it once and for all on the other hand who the hell are we gonna find that A) is actually qualified to judge this sort of thing<p>In the US, any federal judge in a court where venue is appropriate for whatever claim is filed. Apply the derived works rule in copyright law is certainly something they are qualified to do.<p>&gt; B) doesn&#x27;t have a vested interest in one way or another.<p>Same answer as above.<p>&gt; On the gripping hand it wouldn&#x27;t actually solve anything because lawyers will continually argue that this case isn&#x27;t covered by that precedent.<p>While perhaps it will remain unsettled in a particularly strained binary sense in that someone, somewhere will be willing to argue against it -- in that sense, nothing is ever settled -- there is such a thing as fairly settled areas of law covered by fairly clear precedent where actors in the market generally do accept the existence of certain rules without challenging them, because the low probability of success in a challenge isn&#x27;t worth the cost of challenging the rule. (Pretty much the only places where precedential decisions have only a weak effect on settling things is highly politically salient cases where opponents of the decision have a significant role on the judicial selection process, so a constant flow of cases seeking -- with some hope of success -- to overturn the existing rules are generated. But, even then, it usually requires actors with virtually unlimited supplies of other people&#x27;s money (such as US states) on the side seeking to overturn the rules to keep up the flow; one place you see this is in the area of abortion rights. But I don&#x27;t really see a major political party having a key constituency that is as concerned with any position on derived works rules as the &quot;pro-life&quot; movement is on restricting abortion.)