Court Opinion

ID: 9452184
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:32:11.421565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:06.069095
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge,
concurring, with whom HAYS, Circuit Judge, also concurs:
The district court should have denied any preliminary injunction to this plaintiff as there was good reason to believe that it was the instrument of Howard Hughes, created principally for the purpose of suppressing the biography of Hughes which Random House had published. We cannot approve an injunction under such circumstances as the plaintiff does not come here with clean hands. It has never been the purpose of the copyright laws to restrict the dissemination of information about persons in the public eye even though those concerned may not welcome the resulting publicity. It is the purpose of those laws to give reasonable protection to the product of an author and his manner of expression where the author’s proper interest in the product might suffer thereby. It would be contrary to the public interest to permit any man to buy up the copyright to anything written about himself and to use his copyright ownership to restrain others from publishing biographical material concerning him.
The spirit of the First Amendment applies to the copyright laws at least to the extent that the courts should not tolerate any attempted interference with the public’s right to be informed regarding matters of general interest when anyone seeks to use the copyright statute which was designed to protect interests of quite a different nature.
Such undisputed facts as were before the district court seem to me to point to the existence of a scheme developed by Hughes and his attorneys and em*312ployees to prevent the publication of any biography of Hughes and, in particular, the Random House biography.
By June 1965, Hughes had learned that Random House intended to publish a full length biography about his life. Through Gregson Bautzer, his California lawyer, Hughes told Bennett Cerf, Random House’s chief executive, that he opposed its publication. He further informed Mr. Cerf that if Random House did not decide against its publication, Hughes, by means of his great resources could and would cause endless trouble.
Rosemont claims that on July 2, 1965 Hughes entered into an agreement with it whereby he gave to Rosemont the sole and exclusive right to publish his life story.1 In any event, on September 16, 1965, Rosemont was incorporated, listing as its sole shareholders, a retired Hughes Tool Co. executive, a present Hughes Tool Co. executive, and Chester Davis, Hughes’ New York lawyer. There is ample factual basis in the record to demonstrate that Rosemont was dominated by Hughes himself: employees of his wholly owned Hughes Productions open Rosemont’s important mail, answer its telephone, and perform clerical and computer work for Rosemont, all without charge. In addition, Rosemont’s part-time research man has testified that he takes his orders from a Hughes Tool Co. executive.
On September 29, Chester Davis contacted Mr. Cerf and informed him of the Hughes-Rosemont agreement. This was at Bautzer’s suggestion. Thereafter, on February 17, 1966, Rosemont instituted a suit against Random House in the New York State courts, claiming a violation of its exclusive right to publish a Hughes biography. Despite the apparent frivolous nature of the claim, extensive discovery proceedings followed in which Random House opened its files to Rosemont. At about the same time, Bautzer again called upon Mr. Cerf and told him that Hughes would make it “financially worthwhile” to Random House and the author to discontinue the biography. In addition, notwithstanding the Hughes agreement with Rosemont, he offered Hughes’ cooperation in the publication of an “authorized” biography by Random House. When Cerf asked what assurances could be given, he stated that Hughes would be willing to pay a penalty if such cooperation were not forthcoming.
During March 1966, a dozen advance galley proofs of the biography were sent by Random House to leading magazines and newspapers for review purposes. Rosemont acquired a copy through unknown channels. Thereafter, Rosemont commenced negotiations with Cowles Communications, Inc., the publisher of Look Magazine, to obtain the copyright to the 1954 Look magazine articles.
Affidavits by Gardner Cowles, the chief executive of Cowles Communications, and by an executive vice-president of Cowles state: (1) that the assignment was requested only after Cowles failed to indicate whether it would take copyright action against Random House; (2) that such assignment was requested in order that the copyrights might be used in negotiation with Random House to prevent further distribution of the book,2 and (3) that the copyrights could not be assigned to Hughes, they were told, since that might force Hughes to appear at a deposition. The affidavits further state that' Hughes’ lawyers admitted during the negotiation that Rosemont was merely a Hughes-controlled company and that Hughes was very upset about Random House’s intended publication.
On May 20,1966, Cowles and Rosemont entered into an agreement; Cowles assigned the copyrights in return for obtaining a right of first refusal on a serialization of Rosemont’s Hughes biog*313raphy, if and when it is ready for publication. The agreement continued, showing Hughes’ interest in the copyright as it was recognized by the parties to the agreement:
“We [Rosemont] agree that with reference to the assignment of copyrights or material given us by you we will not assign such copyrights to any person, firm or corporation other than Howard Hughes, or any corporation owned or controlled by him, or to our stockholders, provided Howard Hughes consents thereto.”
Six days later, on May 26, 1966, Rosemont commenced this action in the district court.
Nor were Rosemont’s efforts to stop publication of material about Hughes confined to Random House. During this same period, Lyle Stuart, Inc., a New York publisher, commissioned author Ezra Goodman to write a Hughes biography. Following this, on November 22, 1965, Goodman then entered into two agreements with Rosemont. First, Goodman agreed not to submit any material to his publisher unless it was first cleared with Rosemont. Under this .contract Goodman’s lawyer received $4,250. In a second agreement of the same date, Rosemont agreed to pay Goodman $38,250 purportedly for Goodman’s unpublished manuscript of the life of D. W. Griffith. Rosemont thereafter rejected the manuscript on Hughes.3 Thus nothing came of Lyle Stuart’s attempts to publish a biography of Hughes.4
The implications from all the above facts are obvious. Hughes wanted nothing written about himself, the publication of which he could not control. The Rosemont Corporation was created to this end. The purchase of the Look copyright was a part of Hughes’ plan to prevent the publication of a biography.5 It is inherent in the nature of a man’s biography that the major events in his life must be treated, and some similarity with prior works is thus inevitable. As such, a claim of infringement may often be a colorable one.
Here, Rosemont Enterprises acquired the Look copyright and sued upon it six days later asking injunctive relief, not with a desire to protect the value of the original writing but to suppress the Random House biography because Hughes wished to prevent its publication.
The plaintiff's conduct in this transaction was not consistent with the equity it seeks; it came into court with unclean hands. This, of itself, was sufficient reason why the district court should not have granted the preliminary injunction.
Of course I agree with the other reasons set forth in Judge Moore’s opinion to support the conclusion that the district court should not have restrained the publication of the biography.

. There would seem to be some question as to exactly when this agreement was entered into as it was not acknowledged until September 27, 1965.

. True Magazine in April 1966 printed a condensed version of the Random House biography. Cowles took no action against this publication.

. It was agreed by Goodman and Rosemont that any disputes arising from the contract would be submitted to binding arbitration by Perry Lieber, a public relations man for Howard Hughes and the Hughes Tool Company. He also found the manuscript unpublishable.

. Sometime after the Rosemont-Goodman arrangements, Lyle Stuart, Inc. commenced an action in Supreme Court, New York County against Rosemont Enterprises, Howard Hughes, Gregson Bautzer, Chester C. Davis and Perry Lieber.

. Rosemont Enterprises, Inc. has subsequently acquired the copyright to The Sowar A Sughes Story by Adela Rogers St. Johns, an article which appeared in the American Weekly Magazine dated April 13, 1947.