Opinion ID: 787823
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Commercial Misappropriation

Text: 52 Stromback alleges in his commercial misappropriation claim that Stromback expended significant time, effort, and money to create The Keeper screenplay with the expectation that he would reap the benefits of the production of the screenplay into a film for commercial sale and that NLC misappropriated the poem and screenplay, including its characters, scenes and events and will reap the benefits that Stromback was expecting. (1st Am. Compl. ¶¶ 48-49, J.A. at 242.) The essence of this claim is that NLC copied portions of The Keeper poem and screenplay. Courts faced with similar misappropriation claims have held them to be preempted by the Copyright Act because they allege an act that infringes upon one of the exclusive rights set forth in Section 106. See, e.g., Daboub v. Gibbons, 42 F.3d 285, 289 (5th Cir.1995) (concluding that the plaintiffs' claims, including misappropriation, were preempted because they merely alleged wrongful copying, distribution and performance of lyrics without alleging an extra element rendering the claim different from a copyright infringement claim); Ehat v. Tanner, 780 F.2d 876, 878 (10th Cir.1985) (finding no distinction between the state law right asserted in the misappropriation claim and the exclusive rights granted under the Copyright Act); Artie Fields Prods., Inc. v. Channel 7 of Detroit, Inc., No. 94-CV-70730-DT, 1994 WL 559331, at -3 (E.D.Mich. June 10, 1994) (holding that the plaintiff's misappropriation and unfair competition claims grounded solely in the copying of the plaintiff's protected expression were preempted); 1 Nimmer § 1.01[B][1][f][iii] (Except for a few stray rulings, legions of cases ... have held preempted claims for misappropriation) (citations omitted). Of course, a misappropriation claim will survive preemption if it alleges an extra element, such as a confidential or fiduciary relationship. Computer Assocs. Int'l, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693, 717 (2d Cir.1992). However, Stromback's assertion that his claim is based upon the time, effort, and money that he expended in developing the screenplay is not an extra element that saves his claim from preemption. See Del Madera Props. v. Rhodes & Gardner, Inc., 820 F.2d 973, 976-77 (9th Cir.1987) (finding the plaintiff's misappropriation claim preempted because the [e]ffort expended to create a Tentative Map and supporting documents is effort expended to create tangible works of authorship and [a]s such, this effort is within the scope of copyright protection); Mayer v. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, Ltd., 601 F.Supp. 1523, 1535 (S.D.N.Y.1985) (rejecting as preempted the plaintiff's unfair competition/misappropriation claim alleging misappropriation of the plaintiff's time, effort, and talent). Therefore, this claim is preempted. 53