Opinion ID: 3052190
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: e., in the motion picture as a whole.

Text: 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.