## Facts

- John Huston co-directed the 1950 film *The Asphalt Jungle*, created and released in black-and-white.
- Huston’s contract with the studio treated the film as a work made for hire under U.S. law, assigning economic rights to the producer and disclaiming Huston’s authorship and moral rights.
- The producer’s rights were later assigned to Turner Entertainment, which produced a colorized version of the film.
- La Cinq planned to broadcast the colorized version in France.
- Huston’s heirs, joined by performer and technician unions, sought to stop the French broadcast, claiming that French law recognizes Huston as an author and grants an inalienable moral right to respect for the work, including its integrity.
- A trial court enjoined television broadcast of the colorized version, but the Paris Court of Appeal reversed, reasoning that U.S. law and the original contracts controlled and precluded Huston’s moral-rights claim.
- Huston’s heirs and the unions sought review in the Cour de cassation.

## Issues

1. Whether French rules protecting an author’s moral right and the integrity of a work apply in France as overriding mandatory provisions, regardless of the work’s foreign origin and foreign contracts.
2. Whether a film director may be treated as an “author” under French copyright law, such that the author (and heirs) may invoke the moral right of integrity in France despite U.S. work-for-hire doctrine and contractual disclaimers.

## Decision

- The Cour de cassation joined the appeals, quashed the Paris Court of Appeal’s judgment, and remanded.
- It held that French provisions barring impairment of a work’s integrity in France and vesting moral rights in the author by the fact of creation are overriding mandatory rules.
- The Court of Appeal erred by refusing to apply these mandatory French rules and by subordinating the existence and exercise of moral rights in France to U.S. law and Huston’s contracts.
- The remand allowed renewed consideration of injunctive relief against broadcasting the colorized version in France based on the heirs’ moral right of integrity.

## Legal Principles

- In France, no impairment may be made to the integrity of a literary or artistic work, regardless of the State where the work was first disclosed.
- The author is vested with moral rights by the fact of creation; these rights may be invoked by heirs.
- These moral-rights rules function as overriding mandatory provisions in French private international law and are not displaced by foreign law, work-for-hire rules, or contractual disclaimers of authorship and moral rights.
- A foreign exploitation in France (such as television broadcast) may be restricted when it conflicts with the author’s moral right to respect for the work.

## Conclusion

The Cour de cassation ruled that French moral-rights protections—especially the right to respect for the integrity of a work and the automatic vesting of moral rights in the creator—apply in France as mandatory rules even when foreign law and contracts would deny authorship and moral rights, requiring reconsideration of the legality of broadcasting a colorized version in France.


Huston v. Société Turner Entertainment Co., Bull. civ. I, No. 172 (Cass. 1e civ. 1991)