Opinion ID: 3052190
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Publication of a movie version of an unpub-

Text: lished story does not constitute publication of the story as such. Batjac, 160 F.3d at 1230 (quoting Compendium I, COMPENDIUM OF COPYRIGHT OFFICE PRACTICES § 3.1.1 IV(a)). The Compendium makes clear that, by virtue of the publication of the Motion Picture, the Treatment “as such” did not become the subject of statutory copyright. Rather, only those elements of the Treatment that were incorporated into the Motion Picture were published, and they were statutorily protected as compoRICHLIN v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER 7251 nents of the Motion Picture, not as an independent “work.” Thus, we reject the Richlin heirs’ contention that publication of the Motion Picture with notice invested the Treatment with a statutory copyright.14 The Richlin heirs contend that this reading of Batjac is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Stewart v. Abend. There, Cornell Woolrich authored a short story entitled “It Had to Be Murder,” which was published as a collective work with other short stories in Dime Detective Magazine (“Dime Detective”) in 1942. Abend, 495 U.S. at 211. Woolrich assigned to Dime Detective only his right to publication, retaining all other rights. Id. When the magazine was published, the magazine’s blanket copyright notice secured federal statutory copyright for the separate and independent works it contained, including Woolrich’s story. Id. In 1945, Woolrich assigned to a producer the federal statutory right to make a motion picture version of “It Had to Be Murder,” and also agreed to renew the copyright in the story and to assign the same motion picture rights to the producer at the appropriate time. Id. at 212. The producer subsequently assigned his rights to Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock’s production company, which developed “It Had to Be Murder” into the motion picture Rear Window. Id. Woolrich died before the renewal term commenced. Id. at 213. The executor of Woolrich’s estate then renewed the copyright in the story and assigned it to Abend, who, years later, sued Stewart, Hitchock, MCA Inc., and Universal Film Exchanges for infringement of the right to distribute Rear Window during the story’s renewal term of copyright. Id. at 212-13. The Supreme Court held that “if the author dies before the renewal period, then the assignee may continue to use the original work only 14 Although the copyright in the Motion Picture “protect[ed] all the copyrightable component parts of the work,” 17 U.S.C. § 3 (1909), that is not the same as securing a copyright in those component parts. Richlin and Edwards would have had to publish the Treatment itself with notice to secure a copyright in that “work” under the 1909 Act. 7252 RICHLIN v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER if the author’s successor transfers the renewal rights to the assignee.” Id. at 221; see also id. at 219 (“[W]hen an author dies before the renewal period arrives, his executor is entitled to the renewal rights, even though the author previously assigned his renewal rights to another party.”); id. at 219-20 (“The right of renewal is contingent. It does not vest until the end [of the original term.]” (quoting 5 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE 1909 COPYRIGHT ACT, Part K, p. 77 (E. Brylawski & A. Goldman eds. 1976) (statement of Mr. Hale))). Therefore, because Woolrich was not alive at the commencement of the renewal term, the renewal term of copyright did not vest in him, and his prevesting transfer was null and void. Abend, the assignee of the executor of Woolrich’s estate, was the rightful owner of the renewal term of copyright in the story “It Had to Be Murder.” Id. at 235-36. Richlin died in 1990. Had the Treatment become the subject of statutory copyright as a separate and independent work, its renewal term would not commence until 1991. According to the Richlin heirs, because Richlin, like Woolrich, died before the right to renew the copyright vested, the right to renew the copyright in the Treatment reverted to them.15 The disconnect in this theory is that, unlike the story “It Had to Be Murder,” an independent work, the Treatment was never the subject of federal copyright protection as an independent work. Because it never was invested with statutory copyright protection, there was no right to renew and, therefore, no renewal right to revert to the Richlin heirs. [16] Indeed, the Copyright Office has rejected the Richlin heirs’ theory that previously unpublished components of a motion picture receive independent statutory copyright protection by virtue of incorporation into a motion picture that itself becomes the subject of federal statutory copyright pro15 Under this theory, during the supposed first term of copyright, the Richlin heirs would have had no interest because Richlin was free to assign, and did assign, all rights to Mirisch. RICHLIN v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER 7253 tection. In Husbands, the Copyright Office Board of Appeals (“BOA”) expressly ruled that an unpublished underlying work that is incorporated into a statutorily copyrighted motion picture does not receive a statutory copyright independent of the motion picture’s copyright. Husbands, Copyright Office Board of Appeals Letter, Control No. 10-600-754-2(C), at 6 (May 14, 2002), available at http://www.ipmall.info/hosted_ resources/CopyrightAppeals. There, John Cassavetes authored a screenplay, but did not secure statutory copyright in the work. Id. at 1. He transferred “the rights” to Faces Music Inc., which incorporated the screenplay into the motion picture, Husbands. The motion picture received federal statutory copyright protection in 1970. Id. at 2. In 1998, when it came time to renew the motion picture’s copyright for its second term, Cassavetes’s heirs filed two renewal copyright registrations, one for the screenplay and one for the motion picture. Id. at 1. The Copyright Office issued the renewal registration in the motion picture, but denied the application for renewal of copyright in the screenplay. Id. The Cassavetes heirs appealed to the BOA, making the identical arguments as the Richlin heirs. The BOA upheld the Copyright Office’s rejection of the heirs’ application for a renewal copyright interest in the screenplay, reasoning: The Copyright Office considered a motion picture to be a unified work of authorship for purposes of registration under the 1909 law. The Office’s Compendium I (1973) described a motion picture as “ordinarily . . . embod[ying] a large number of contributions, including those of the author of the story, author of the screenplay, director, editor, cameraman, individual producer, etc. These persons are not regarded as the ‘author’ of the film in the copyright sense. Compendium I further states that most motion pictures were works made for hire, with the production company’s [sic] being the employer in 7254 RICHLIN v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER most cases. The Office’s understanding of motion picture authorship . . . as consisting of contributions or parts, each of which is meant to be joined to other contributions or parts, in order to produce an integrated entity underlies this understanding. .... The failure of the screenplay author . . . to have reserved via registration the copyright in the unpublished version of the screenplay . . . , thus rendering the screenplay’s copyright for purposes of the public registration record separate and apart from the copyright in the motion picture, means that the Office, viewing the motion picture as an integrated entity, cannot now insert into the public record a claim to renewal rights owned by a party different from the owner of record of the rights in the integrated entity,
Id. at 4, 6 (citations omitted). Even absent the principle of deference to the views of the Copyright Office, we would find the BOA’s analysis persuasive. A motion picture is a work to which many contribute; however, those contributions ultimately merge to create a unitary whole. As one district court explained, “it is impossible to cleave the story, screenplay and musical score of a motion picture film from the film itself.” Classic Film Museum, Inc. v. Warner Bros., Inc., 453 F. Supp. 852, 855-56 (D. Me. 1978). Though publication of a motion picture with notice secures federal statutory copyright protection for all of its component parts, see 17 U.S.C. § 3 (1909), that does not mean that the component parts necessarily each secure an independent federal statutory copyright. The component parts may or may not be copyrightable; they may or may not be the subject of an independent statutory copyright when they are incorporated into the motion picture. As Abend itself demonRICHLIN v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER 7255 strates, the author of a work at common law must secure a federal copyright for that work for the right to renew to vest in either him or his heirs. The statutory copyright of a motion picture precludes the public from copying or otherwise infringing upon the statutory rights in the motion picture, including its component parts. However, when Mirisch secured federal statutory copyright for the Motion Picture, it did not also secure a federal statutory copyright for the Treatment. Assuming the Treatment is a copyrightable work, Richlin and Edwards simply failed to secure federal copyright for it. [17] The Richlin heirs turn to Selznick v. Turner Entertainment Co. to argue that when the original term of copyright in the Motion Picture was renewed, the statutory copyright in the Treatment was also renewed. The entire reading audience by now will know how to resolve this contention: There was no statutory copyright in the Treatment to renew; therefore, renewal of the Motion Picture’s copyright did nothing to affect the Treatment’s copyright status. In Selznick, the plaintiff and defendants were undisputed co-owners of a federal statutory copyright in the classic motion picture Gone With the Wind. The defendants filed a renewal copyright registration in their names only, and claimed that this renewal eradicated the plaintiff’s interest in the copyright. Selznick, 990 F. Supp. at 1186. The district court rejected this argument, ruling that “[i]t is well-established that the co-owner claiming the renewal takes legal title to the renewal copyright as constructive trustee on behalf of the non-renewing co-owner.” Id. (citing Pye v. Mitchell, 574 F.2d 476, 480 (9th Cir. 1978)). Therefore, the Richlin heirs’ reliance on Selznick necessarily returns us to their flawed premise that Richlin coauthored the Motion Picture, and thereby became a co-owner of the Motion Picture’s statutory copyright. Unlike in Selznick, however, Richlin was not a coauthor of the Motion Picture. Moreover, the Richlin heirs have wholly failed to demonstrate how the Motion Picture’s incorporation of the Treatment invested 7256 RICHLIN v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER in them an ownership interest in the Motion Picture’s renewal copyright term. Although the Richlin heirs are correct that, under Batjac, publication of the Motion Picture also published those copyrightable elements of the Treatment incorporated into the Motion Picture, it is a nonsequitur to conclude that the Richlin heirs thereby gained a statutory copyright in the Treatment or the Motion Picture. As MGM points out, the only way on these facts for Richlin to be a co-owner of the copyright in the Motion Picture is if he had been a coauthor. Richlin, however, did not coauthor the Motion Picture. Therefore, Selznick’s holding that a joint owner who renews a copyright acts as a constructive trustee for the other joint owners is inapposite. [18] In the end, the Richlin heirs ask us to consider one question: “For what reason should Richlin’s heirs be treated any differently than the heirs of any other author?” The answer is clear: Richlin failed to secure federal statutory copyright protection for the Treatment. Therefore, the Treatment as such was never invested with statutory copyright, and a right to renew the original term of statutory copyright neither vested in Richlin nor reverted to his heirs. Because Richlin neither co-owned nor coauthored the Motion Picture, neither he nor his heirs have any interest in its copyright.