<P> In 1961, Salinger denied Elia Kazan permission to direct a stage adaptation of Catcher for Broadway . More recently, Salinger's agents received bids for the Catcher film rights from Harvey Weinstein and Steven Spielberg, neither of which was even passed on to Salinger for consideration . </P> <P> In 2003, the BBC television program The Big Read featured The Catcher in the Rye, interspersing discussions of the novel with "a series of short films that featured an actor playing J.D. Salinger's adolescent antihero, Holden Caulfield ." The show defended its unlicensed adaptation of the novel by claiming to be a "literary review", and no major charges were filed . </P> <P> After Salinger's death in 2010, Phyllis Westberg, who was Salinger's agent at Harold Ober Associates, stated that nothing has changed in terms of licensing film, television, or stage rights of his works . A letter written by Salinger in 1957 revealed that he was open to an adaptation of The Catcher in the Rye released after his death . He wrote: "Firstly, it is possible that one day the rights will be sold . Since there's an ever - looming possibility that I won't die rich, I toy very seriously with the idea of leaving the unsold rights to my wife and daughter as a kind of insurance policy . It pleasures me no end, though, I might quickly add, to know that I won't have to see the results of the transaction ." Salinger also wrote that he believed his novel was not suitable for film treatment, and that translating Holden Caulfield's first - person narrative into voice - over and dialogue would be contrived . </P> <P> In 2009, a year before his death, Salinger successfully sued to stop the U.S. publication of a novel that presents Holden Caulfield as an old man . The novel's author, Fredrik Colting, commented: "call me an ignorant Swede, but the last thing I thought possible in the U.S. was that you banned books". The issue is complicated by the nature of Colting's book, 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, which has been compared to fan fiction . Although commonly not authorized by writers, no legal action is usually taken against fan fiction, since it is rarely published commercially and thus involves no profit . Colting, however, has published his book commercially, therefore interfering with copyright law and is not protected . </P>

Who owns the rights to the catcher in the rye
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