Murray Hill Pubs. v. Twentieth Century Fox

Decision Date19 March 2004
Docket NumberNo. 01-2668.,No. 01-2721.,01-2668.,01-2721.
Citation361 F.3d 312
PartiesMURRAY HILL PUBLICATIONS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee/Cross-Appellant, v. TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant/Cross-Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Louis P. Petrich (argued and briefed), Leopold, Petrich & Smith, Los Angeles, California,Maria N. Bernier, Gregory B. Jordan (briefed), Reed & Smith, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Laurie J. Michelson, J. Michael Huget (briefed), Butzel Long, Ann Arbor, Michigan, for Appellant.

Mayer Morganroth (argued and briefed), Jeffrey B. Morganroth, Jason R. Hirsch (briefed), Morganroth & Morganroth, Southfield, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: BOGGS, Chief Judge; SILER, Circuit Judge; and RICE, District Judge.*

OPINION

BOGGS, Chief Judge.

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation ("Fox") appeals following a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff, Murray Hill Publications, Inc. ("Murray Hill"), in its action for copyright infringement. During the creation of the movie "Jingle All The Way" ("JATW"), Fox received from Murray Hill a submission of the screenplay for "Could This Be Christmas" ("CTBC"). After the theatrical release of JATW, Murray Hill sued Fox, alleging that the JATW movie infringed upon its copyright of the CTBC screenplay. At trial, both Fox and Murray Hill presented expert evidence to establish whether the JATW movie was substantially similar to the CTBC screenplay. After the jury returned a verdict for Murray Hill, the district court disallowed damage items representing the bulk of the jury award and denied attorney's fees to Murray Hill. On appeal, Fox argues that it was entitled to summary judgment on the issue of substantial similarity, that the trial was tainted by improper expert testimony by Murray Hill's expert witness and by misleading jury instructions, necessitating a new trial, and that the damages awarded were unsupported in law or fact. Murray Hill cross-appealed and argues that it was entitled to the full damages awarded by the jury and also to attorney's fees. We reverse because Fox was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. We do not reach the issues of the expert evidence, the jury instructions, the attorney's fees, or the damages.

I

The principal author of the JATW screenplay was Randy Kornfield, a Fox script reader and freelance writer of screenplays. In 1993, Kornfield tried to buy a Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger action figure as a birthday present for his son. The difficulties he encountered in this pursuit and conversations with other parents similarly engaged gave Kornfield the idea for a screenplay. On January 11, 1994, Kornfield registered his "treatment," a six-page summary of a proposed screenplay, then called "A Christmas Hunt," with the Writer's Guild of America. On July 17, he registered a fleshed-out screenplay of this treatment. Executives at the Fox Searchlight division liked the screenplay and bought it for "1492 Pictures," a production company affiliated with Fox. From November 1994 through June 1995, Kornfield worked with Fox and 1492 Pictures to revise the screenplay. In November 1995, Fox hired two more scriptwriters to continue editing and enhancing the screenplay. During this editorial process, the screenplay acquired the JATW title.

The author of the CTBC screenplay was Brian Webster, a Detroit school teacher and aspiring script writer. In 1988, inspired by his difficulties in obtaining a Golden Batman as a Christmas present for his son, Webster wrote the first draft of a screenplay, initially entitled "Action Man: The Toy," then "So This Is Christmas," and finally "Could This Be Christmas." Webster first registered this screenplay with the Copyright Office in 1989 and re-registered it in 1991. From 1989 through 1993, Webster and his agent made repeated attempts to sell this screenplay to a variety of potential producers. While Murray Hill pleaded a number of theories on how the screenplay could have found its way to Fox during this period, the district court considered all of the theories too speculative and found that Fox did not have access to the CTBC screenplay during this period. Murray Hill does not raise this issue on appeal. Significantly, on February 4, 1994, Webster sold an option to CTBC to Murray Hill and eventually transferred all rights in CTBC to Murray Hill. On June 21, Murray Hill submitted CTBC to the Family Film division of Fox. On July 9, the CTBC screenplay was read and summarized by Rudy Romero, another Fox script reader and friend of Kornfield's. Romero was also the script reader who a few months later performed the same task for the JATW screenplay. On August 1, Fox declined the CTBC screenplay. After Fox declined the screenplay, Murray Hill made no further attempts to sell it.

At some time in February 1996, Robert Laurel, the principal of Murray Hill, read an article in Daily Variety about the JATW movie then in production. Concerned about the apparent similarities between JATW and CTBC, Laurel contacted his attorneys, who sent a series of cease-and-desist letters to Fox. Early settlement negotiations between Fox and Murray Hill failed over Murray Hill's unwillingness to commit to any particular theory of how and when Fox could have obtained access to the CTBC screenplay and Fox's refusal to share some of its information until Murray Hill committed to such a theory. Nevertheless, Fox proceeded with the JATW movie. On November 22, 1996, the movie was released and quickly proved to be a commercial success. As of December 2000, the JATW movie had earned $183 million.

On December 3, 1997, Murray Hill filed suit against Fox in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. While this complaint alleged a multitude of theories of liability, the only claim still relevant is Murray Hill's allegation that the JATW movie infringed upon the copyright of the CTBC screenplay. The court made a finding that Murray Hill failed to establish directly that Fox had access to the CTBC screenplay at any time before Murray Hill submitted it to Fox. The case then proceeded to trial by jury. The district court instructed the jury based on the Ninth Circuit's test for judging the "substantial similarity" of copyrighted works. As the jury was deliberating, the court found that the JATW treatment, created prior to the CTBC submission, did not infringe on the CTBC screenplay.1 However, the jury was not informed of this ruling. Four days later, the jury rendered a verdict in favor of Murray Hill. The damages included $1 million in producer's fees and $500,000 in writer's fees that Murray Hill lost because Fox did not contract with it for these services, $2 million in lost goodwill, and $500,000 in merchandising revenue Fox earned from the sales of a JATW sound track and toys. While the jury found that JATW had not yet earned any profits for Fox, it estimated Fox's future profits on JATW at $15 million and also awarded that amount to Murray Hill. Accordingly, the district court entered judgment in favor of Murray Hill in the sum of $19 million. Fox renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law and also moved for new trial. The court granted Fox's motion for judgment as a matter of law with respect to all damage items except the producer's and writer's fees, thus reducing the award to $1.5 million. The court also declined to award attorney's fees to Murray Hill and entered judgment in the reduced amount. Before this court now are Fox's timely appeal and Murray Hill's timely cross-appeal.

II

To determine whether the district court erred in allowing this case to go to the jury, we must look both at the developing law of copyright as it addresses the elements of proof for copyright infringement, and to the specific elements of the two works before us. We will first lay out the framework of law, as our circuit has pronounced it (Part III); then describe the dramatic elements of the two works (Part IV); and, finally, apply the law to an assessment of the relation of the protectable elements of the copyrighted work to the overall tenor of the allegedly infringing work (Part V).

III

Title 17 of the United States Code protects owners' copyrights in creative works. 17 U.S.C. §§ 101-1332. Copyright owners have the exclusive right to reproduce the protected work, to prepare derivative works, and to distribute copies to the public. 17 U.S.C. § 106(1)(3). In the case of infringement, the owner of a copyrighted work may seek injunctive relief, impoundment and disposition of the infringing articles, damages, infringer's profits, and legal costs, including attorney's fees. 17 U.S.C. §§ 502-505. "To succeed in a copyright infringement action, a plaintiff must establish that he or she owns the copyrighted creation, and that the defendant copied it." Kohus v. Mariol, 328 F.3d 848, 853 (6th Cir.2003); see also Feist v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 361, 111 S.Ct. 1282, 113 L.Ed.2d 358 (1991). "However, in most cases courts have no objective evidence of the process by which the challenged object was developed and thus are forced to rely on the inferences which may be drawn from two basic facts: access and similarity." Glanzmann v. King, 8 U.S.P.Q.2d 1594, 1595 (E.D.Mich.1988) (citing Ideal Toy Corp. v. Kenner Prods., 443 F.Supp. 291 (S.D.N.Y. 1977)). "[W]here there is no direct evidence of copying, a plaintiff may establish `an inference of copying by showing (1) access to the allegedly-infringed work by the defendant(s) and (2) a substantial similarity between the two works at issue.'" (emphases added). Kohus, 328 F.3d at 853-54 (quoting Ellis v. Diffie, 177 F.3d 503, 506 (6th Cir.1999)). "Thus, copying is an essential element of infringement and substantial similarity between the plaintiff's and defendants' works is an essential element of copying." Wickham v. Knoxville Int'l Energy Exposition, 739 F.2d 1094, 1097 (6th Cir.1984) (citations omitted).

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