Self Reliance v. Ananda Church

• Decision Date: 23 March 2000
• Docket Number: No. 97-17407,SELF-REALIZATION,97-17407
• Citation: 206 F.3d 1322
• Parties: (9th Cir. 2000) FELLOWSHIP CHURCH, a California corporation,Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ANANDA CHURCH OF SELFREALIZATION, a California corporation; FELLOWSHIP OF INNER COMMUNION, a California corporation; JAMES WALTERS, aka Sri Kriyananda, Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1322

206 F.3d 1322 (9th Cir. 2000)

SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP CHURCH, a California corporation,Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ANANDA CHURCH OF SELFREALIZATION, a California corporation; FELLOWSHIP OF INNER COMMUNION, a California corporation; JAMES WALTERS, aka Sri Kriyananda, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 97-17407

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

Argued and Submitted February 15, 2000

Filed March 23, 2000

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

COUNSEL: Louis P. Petrich, Leopold, Petrich & Smith, Los Angeles, California, for the plaintiff-appellant.

Glenn W. Trost, Coudert Brothers, Los Angeles, California, for the defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California; Edward J. Garcia, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-90-00846-EJG

Before: Mary M. Schroeder, John T. Noonan, and A. Wallace Tashima, Circuit Judges.

SCHROEDER, Circuit Judge:

This litigation war between two rival churches concerns copyrights to the writings, photographs, and sound recordings of Swami Paramahansa Yogananda. The plaintiff, SelfRealization Fellowship Church ("SRF"), claims that it holds valid copyrights to all of the works. The defendants and admitted copiers are a breakaway church and its leader, Ananda Church of Self-Realization and James Walters ("Ananda"). They contend that none of the copyrights are valid.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Ananda. On appeal, SRF raises various issues. The most important are whether the works of a religious leader, living under a vow of poverty in the church he founded, can be considered "works for hire" or the works of a "corporate body" within the meaning of the 1909 Copyright Act and, in the alternative, whether SRF has adduced evidence from which a jury could conclude that a valid assignment of common law copyrights occurred.

With regard to Yogananda's writings and spoken lectures, we hold that the works are not works for hire or the works of a corporate body, so that the common law copyrights did not vest in the church as a matter of law. We hold that there are triable issues with regard to the purported assignments and remand for further proceedings on those issues. We also hold that there is a triable issue regarding whether some of the photographs involved in this appeal were works for hire.

BACKGROUND

Yogananda, a monk of the Swami order, founded SRF in 1935 when he arrived in California from India. Until his death in 1952, Yogananda lived in quarters that SRF provided and received from SRF a small monthly stipend. Yogananda served as SRF's president and as a member of its board of directors. While living at SRF, Yogananda wrote books and articles and gave religious lectures. The lectures were recorded and later published by SRF. SRF arranged for the publication of Yogananda's books, and published the articles in its own magazine. SRF also published in its magazine various photographs of Yogananda and other SRF leaders.

In the district court, both parties introduced evidence of Yogananda's relationship with SRF and his intent regarding the ownership of his works and the copyrights to those works. For example, Yogananda observed a vow of poverty, which led him to assign all of his possessions to SRF in a written assignment dated May 28, 1935. The assignment transferred to SRF Yogananda's "books, lessons, monthly araeceptum, furnitures, personal properties including shawls, blankets, portable temple of silence, my handwritings, typewriters, mimeograph machine, cooking utensils and all machinery, icebox, files, victrola, radio, and/or any other personal property which I may own and which is not described or enumerated herein." In 1939, Yogananda signed a standard SRF form agreeing to renounce any claim for compensation in exchange for "the privilege of being accepted as a worker" by SRF. SRF obtained copyrights on most, but not all, of Yogananda's published books in its own name, describing several of them as "works for hire." Of particular relevance to Ananda's position is the fact that in 1951 Yogananda entered into an agreement with an individual hired to translate six of his works into Spanish for distribution in Mexico. The agreement provided that the "Mexican copyrights" to the English and Spanish versions of those six works would be obtained in Yogananda's name rather than the name of the translator.

Ten years after Yogananda's death, James Walters, also known as Sri Kriyananda, left SRF and formed Ananda, a rival church dedicated to the teachings of Yogananda. Ananda admits to copying the books, articles, recordings, and photographs involved in this appeal. SRF filed an infringement action in 1990. We decided an earlier appeal regarding trademark claims in 1995. See Self-Realization Church v. Ananda Church of Self-Realization, 59 F.3d 902 (9th Cir. 1995). The district court entered a final judgment disposing of all copyright claims in 1997, and this appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

Because all of the copied works were created before 1978, the Copyright Act of 1909 governs the validity of the initial copyrights. See Roth v. Pritikin, 710 F.2d 934, 938 (2d Cir. 1983). These initial statutory copyrights ran for a 28 year term. See 17 U.S.C. S 24 (repealed). Under the 1909 Act, the holder of the common law copyright at the time of publication, either the author or the author's assignee, was the party entitled to receive statutory protection. See Urantia Found. v. Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955, 960 (9th Cir. 1997). Assignments did not have to be in writing to be enforceable. See Magnuson v. Video Yesteryear, 85 F.3d 1424, 1428 (9th Cir. 1996). Authors could assign their common law copyrights "without the necessity of observing any formalities." Urantia Found., 114 F.3d at 960.

Blanket copyrights on magazines were sufficient to "protect all the copyrightable components of the work copyrighted" and gave to the copyright proprietor "all the rights which he would have if each part were individually copyrighted under" the Act. 17 U.S.C. S 3 (repealed). The weight of the case law has concluded that this means that a blanket copyright gives a magazine publisher rights in an individual contribution only if the publisher owns the common law copyright as the author of the contribution, or as the author's assignee. See Mail & Express Co. v. Life Pub. Co., 192 F. 899, 900 (2d Cir. 1912); The Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, 172 U.S.P.Q. 670, 675 (Ct. Cl. 1972); Kinelow Publ'g Co. v. Photography in Bus., Inc., 270 F. Supp. 851, 853 (S. D. N.Y. 1967); Ilyin v. Avon Publications, Inc., 144 F. Supp. 368 (S. D. N.Y. 1956); Kaplan v. Fox Film Corp., 19 F. Supp. 780 (S. D. N.Y. 1937).

The 1909 Act did not extend any protection to sound recordings, however. With respect to Yogananda's recorded lectures, SRF claims a common law copyright enforceable under California law. See Klekas v. EMI Films, Inc., 150 Cal. App. 3d 1102, 1108-09 (Ct. App. 1984) (explaining that before passage of the 1976 Act, works not protected by the federal copyright statute were protected by state law). Cal. Civ. Code S 980 extends common law copyright protection to sound recordings, and Cal. Civ. Code S 982 permits authors to transfer their rights in such works.

The copying at issue in this appeal took place at various times after 1962. Some works were copied during the initial copyright term, and some during the renewal term. The principal issues with respect to the works authored by Yogananda are, first, whether the works were "works for hire" or works produced by a "corporate body" within the meaning of the 1909 Act, and if not, whether Yogananda validly assigned his common law copyrights to SRF. The district court held that the works were neither works for hire nor produced by a corporate body, and we agree. The district court further held that there was no valid common law copyright assignment to SRF. We disagree, and hold that SRF has presented triable issues regarding assignment.

Assuming that SRF can establish the validity of its initial copyright in each work, we must also decide a separate set of issues with respect to copying that took place during the works' renewal terms. This is because under the 1909 Act, renewal rights revert in most circumstances to the author's next of kin where, as here, the author was not living at the time the initial copyright expired. We hold that SRF was not entitled to renew its copyrights in books authored by Yogananda. We hold, however, that SRF was entitled to renew any valid initial copyrights in Yogananda's articles.

I. Works For Hire

SRF contends that it holds valid initial and renewal copyrights in Yogananda's writings through the "work for hire" doctrine. See 17 U.S.C. S 26 (repealed) (stating that the word `author' shall include an employer in the case of works made for hire). This circuit has summarized the work for hire doctrine as follows: "[W]hen one person engages another, whether as employee or as an independent contractor, to produce a work of an artistic nature, . . . in the absence of an express contractual reservation of the copyright in the artist, the presumption arises that the mutual intent of the parties is that the title to the copyright shall be in the person at whose instance and expense the work is done." Lin-Brook Builders Hardware v. Gertler, 352 F.2d 298, 300 (9th Cir. 1965). To survive summary judgment on a claim of work for hire, SRF must "present some credible evidence that [Yogananda's] work was done at the `instance and expense' " of SRF. Dolman v. Agee, 157 F.3d 708, 712 (9th Cir. 1998).

The Second Circuit has described the "instance and expense" test under the 1909 Act as an inquiry into whether "the motivating factor in producing the work was the employer who induced the creation." Playboy Enter., Inc. v. Dumas, 53 F.3d 549, 554 (2d Cir. 1995). SRF has not introduced evidence that would demonstrate that it was at SRF's "instance" that...