Brief Fact Summary. Aalmuhammed (Plaintiff) sought a declaratory judgment that he was a co-owner of the copyright in a movie and was therefore entitled to an accounting of the profits from the movie.
Synopsis of Rule of Law. A person claiming to be a co-owner of a joint work must prove that both parties intended the work to be a joint work.
Issue. Does the contribution of independently copyrightable material to a work intended to be an inseparable whole make the work a joint work?
Held. (Kleinfeld, J.) No. A joint work is one that was intended by both parties to be a joint work. That determination is fact specific. The courts will look to, among other things, the apportionment of decision-making authority and the billing accorded the various parties. Here, none of the parties made any objective manifestations of intent to be co-authors. Specifically, Plaintiff had no supervisory authority over the film and signed a “work for hire†agreement that prevented him from being a co-author. Affirmed but remanded for further proceedings on a quantum meruit claim.
The movie credits plainly and expressly repudiated authorship, by listing Aalmuhammed far below the more prominent names, as an Islamic technical consultant.
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