Opinion ID: 2817831
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Joint Work

Text: The district court held in its summary judgment ruling that Treating Explosive Kids is a joint work. Under the Copyright Act, a joint work is 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. § 101. Inseparable contributions have little or no independent meaning standing alone, as might frequently be the case with collaboration on a written text like a play or a novel. Childress v. Taylor, 945 F.2d 500, 505 (2d Cir. 1991). Interdependent contributions, on the other hand, have some meaning standing alone but achieve their primary significance because of their combined effect, as in the case of the words and music of a song. Id. For a work to be joint, the authors must have intended, at the time the writing is done, that their contributions be merged into an integrated unit. Id. (emphasis omitted) (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 1476, at 120 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5736). It is not necessary that the authors' contributions be quantitatively or -29- qualitatively equal, only that each author's contribution be more than de minimis. 1 Melville Nimmer & David Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright § 6.07[A][1] (2014) (Nimmer). Authors who create a joint work co-own the copyright in that work. 17 U.S.C. § 201(a); see also Saenger Org., Inc. v. Nationwide Ins. Licensing Assocs., Inc., 119 F.3d 55, 59 (1st Cir. 1997) (citing § 201(a) for the premise that copyright protection generally attaches to the person [or persons] who actually create[ ] a work). Joint authors share equal undivided interests in the whole work -- in other words, each joint author has the right to use or to license the work as he or she wishes, subject only to the obligation to account to the other joint author for any profits that are made. Thomson v. Larson, 147 F.3d 195, 199 (2d Cir. 1998). Even if it is clear that one co-author has contributed more to the work than another co-author, they are nevertheless equal owners of the copyright in the absence of an agreement to the contrary. 1 Nimmer § 6.08. Greene argues that it is a genuine issue of material fact whether he intended his contributions to merge with Ablon's into a unitary whole. He concedes that the book, as originally conceived, would have been such an integrated work, but insists that his intention changed after seeing Ablon's early efforts. At that point, Greene asserts, the initial project was aborted and reignited with different intentions: Ablon's contributions were to -30- be limited to a handful of stand-alone vignettes. As noted, Greene calculates that Ablon's contributions ultimately comprised no more than fifteen pages of the final 226-page published manuscript. Even accepting that Ablon contributed a scant fifteen pages of excisable vignettes, Greene's argument fails because he confuses the quality and quantity of Ablon's contributions with the relationship the authors intended those contributions would have to the rest of the book. We agree with the district court that there is no evidence that either Greene or Ablon believed that Treating Explosive Kids was anything other than a unitary book, and there is abundant evidence that Ablon's contributions to the book would be [i.e., proved to be and, more importantly, were intended to be] interdependent with Greene's contributions. Greene v. Ablon, No. 09-10937-DJC, 2012 WL 4104792, at  (D. Mass. Sept. 17, 2012) (citations omitted). Although Ablon's vignettes and Greene's surrounding passages may have some meaning standing alone, the structure of the book -- vignettes nested in related text -- demonstrates that these contributions were undoubtedly intended to achieve their primary significance because of their combined effect. Childress, 945 F.2d at 505. Furthermore, the prospectus, the publishing contract,19 the copyright notice, and the book itself 19 Ablon argues that we need not engage in a copyright analysis to determine if he and Greene are co-owners of the book because the publishing contract establishes that relationship. While the contract provides some evidence that Greene and Ablon intended to co-own the Treating Explosive Kids copyright -- as through the -31- all describe Greene and Ablon, without distinction, as co-authors of a single work. Based on these facts, the only reasonable conclusion is that Ablon's contributions were always intended to be interdependent with Greene's. Therefore, the district court correctly determined at summary judgment that Treating Explosive Kids is a joint work, meaning that Greene and Ablon jointly own the copyright in that work.