Copyright Law | Expert Legal Commentary
September 11, 2008
Richlin v. MGM: Coauthor of Movie Treatment Does Not Automatically Own Movie Copyrights
Richlin v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures
By
Olivier A. Taillieu of Zuber & Taillieu LLP
In Richlin v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, 531 F.3d 962 (9th Cir. 2008), the heirs of one coauthor of the treatment that served as the basis of “The Pink Panther” series of movies asserted an interest in the motion picture copyright. The Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment and agreed with the district court that the coauthor of a story treatment is not necessarily the coauthor of a subsequent movie based on that treatment, and therefore cannot necessarily claim a copyright interest in the movie. Accordingly, renewal of the copyright in the motion picture had no impact on the treatment coauthor’s interest.
To continue reading this article, subscribe now
It's FREE and only takes seconds
About the Author
Olivier A. Taillieu is a Partner of Zuber & Taillieu LLP, focusing on intellectual property litigation and arbitration.
Image Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Norebbo
1 Section 101 of the 1976 Copyright Act defines “joint work” as “a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.” 17 U.S.C. section 101 (1976). The copyright claims at issue are governed by the 1909 Copyright Act, not the 1976 Act, and the 1909 Act does not expressly address joint authorship. However, courts regularly applied the common law definition of join authorship to the 1909 Act. Section 101 of the 1976 Act incorporated the same definition that had been in use in the courts. Therefore, the Richlin courts determined that it was appropriate to reference interpretations of the 1976 Act language to the Richlin case, even though the 1976 Act did not, in general, apply to the underlying claims.
2The court referenced a decision by the Copyright Office Board of Appeals that “an unpublished underlying work that is incorporated into a statutorily copyrighted motion picture does not receive a statutorily copyright independent of the motion picture’s copyright.” CITE, citing Husbands, Copyright Office Board of Appeals Letter, Control No. 10-600-754-2(C), at 6 (May 14, 2002).