## Facts

- In 1962, Maurice Richlin coauthored a story treatment for a motion picture that included the character Inspector Jacques Clouseau.
- Before the treatment was published, Richlin assigned all rights in the treatment, including the copyright and the right to renew the copyright, to a corporation involved in producing the film.
- The assignee used the treatment as source material to create the film *The Pink Panther* and later exploited derivative works.
- After Richlin’s death, his heirs asserted they held federal statutory renewal rights in the treatment and claimed ownership interests in the film and related derivative works.
- The heirs argued (1) that coauthoring the treatment made Richlin a coauthor of the film, and (2) that because the film incorporated protected elements of the treatment and the film’s copyright was renewed, they became co-owners of the film’s renewal copyright.
- The district court granted summary judgment for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Inc. and Geoffrey Productions, Inc., concluding the heirs had no interest in the film’s copyright.

## Issues

1. Whether coauthorship of an underlying story treatment, without more, makes the treatment’s author a coauthor of the resulting motion picture for copyright purposes.
2. Whether incorporation of protectable elements of a separately created work into a motion picture, followed by renewal of the motion picture copyright, confers co-ownership in the motion picture’s renewal term on the underlying author or heirs.
3. Whether an assignment transferring all rights in the treatment, including renewal rights, leaves any renewal-based ownership interest for the author’s heirs in the motion picture or its derivative works.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for MGM and Geoffrey Productions.
- The court held Richlin was not a coauthor of the motion picture based solely on coauthoring the treatment.
- The court rejected the claim that renewal of the motion picture copyright created co-ownership in the motion picture renewal term for the heirs because the film incorporated material from the treatment.
- The court concluded the Richlin heirs had no copyright interest in the motion picture.

## Legal Principles

- Coauthorship of a motion picture requires more than contributing underlying material; it depends on the governing coauthorship test for the completed work, including evidence of joint authorship intent and creative control over the final work.
- Copyright in an underlying work and copyright in a derivative work are distinct; use of an underlying work as source material does not, by itself, transfer authorship or ownership in the derivative work to the underlying author.
- An assignment that conveys all rights in an underlying work, including the right to renew, can preclude the author’s heirs from later asserting renewal-based ownership claims tied to exploitation of that underlying work through a derivative production.
- Renewal of a derivative work’s copyright protects the derivative work as a whole for the renewal term but does not automatically create co-ownership in the renewed derivative copyright for contributors of incorporated underlying material.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that a treatment coauthor who assigned all rights, including renewal rights, did not become a coauthor of the later film and that the film’s renewal copyright did not confer renewal-term co-ownership on the treatment author’s heirs merely because the film incorporated elements from the treatment.


Richlin v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, Inc., 531 F.3d 962 (9th Cir. 2008)