Opinion ID: 795072
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Assignment of Seven Dances

Text: 28 It was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to rule that Graham assigned all her rights to the seven dances to the Center. Indeed, this court has already held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it relied on much of the same evidence to determine ownership of the pre-1956 dances. See Graham, 380 F.3d at 643-44. Other evidence specifically demonstrated that the Center owned some of the seven dances. For example, in April 1973 Protas wrote to Arnold Weissberger, a Center Board member and Graham's personal attorney, stating that Graham was about to make a work film of several dances, including Secular Games (one of the seven dances). Protas wrote that he would be grateful if we could draw up a contract between the Center and the photographer ... stating that we retain all rights to these films. The we referred to the Center. Graham, 374 F.Supp.2d at 359; see also id. at 360-61 (finding that the Center exercised control over Embattled Garden and Episodes, two of the seven dances). 29 Plaintiffs attempted to refute this evidence by presenting a contract from 1959, in which Graham granted exclusive rights to her portion of the choreography of EPISODES... Id. at 361. However, as the district court explained, the relevant question is who owned the rights to Episodes upon Graham's death. Nothing in this contract precluded assignment of rights to the Center at a later date. Moreover, evidence demonstrated that the Center bore the costs of recreating this dance in 1979, which was consistent with ownership. See id. 30 Plaintiffs also argued that a 1988 Playbill listed the dance Embattled Garden and stated Choreography copyright 1976 by Martha Graham. The lower court credited the testimony of Janet Eilber (now Artistic Director of Martha Graham Resources) that Playbills are usually `very quickly and sloppily done' and that there were instances in which there were errors in the programs she inspected. Id. As an example, that very same Playbill states that Graham's Appalachian Spring was copyrighted. This was mistaken: Appalachian Spring had entered the public domain and was not copyrighted. Id. at 361-62 (citing Graham, 380 F.3d at 637 n. 26). Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the 1988 Playbill was unreliable. 31 Finally, plaintiffs cited to 1966 documents from the B. De Rothschild Foundation which state that Graham was paid fees for use of works and choreography. The district court properly found that this does not preclude assignment of the rights to the Center at some later date. More importantly, there is no evidence that fees represented a payment in exchange for copyright use. After Graham transferred all rights to other works to the National Endowment for the Arts, for instance, she nevertheless received choreographer's fees from the Center. Id. Similarly, the district court declined to consider a handwritten document from an unknown author from about 1970, which indicated that Graham was paid royalties for performance of some dances. The district court properly found this document to not be significant because Graham was never paid royalties for her works. See id. 32 In sum, the district court, in reaching the foregoing findings, did not abuse its discretion and correctly concluded that the Center owned the seven dances at Graham's death.