Star Trek - Public Domain - Does anyone know the name of this Star Trek Legal Case?

[morgandawn]

 I've seen this mentioned in numerous places but have not yet found the name of the case.

"Boldly Going Where No Copyright Claim Has Gone Before

One of the most notorious cases of copyright omission happened in connection with a little show called Star Trek— another NBC series, but this one a production of Desilu Studios. When originally telecast during the 1966-67 TV season, the entire first season’s voyages of the starship Enterprise aired without a single indication of copyright anywhere in the program.

It wasn’t until years later — and after Star Trek had metamorphosed from a short-lived cult TV show into a cultural phenomenon and highly prized commodity — that the copyright lapse even drew any attention. It was at the time of the advent of home video, when a number of small mom-and-pop outfits, believing that first year of Star Trekto be in the public domain, began selling copies of the episodes on videocassette.

Paramount, which had inherited the Star Trek franchise and produced the remaining two years of the series and all of its spin-offs after parent company Gulf + Western purchased Desilu in 1967, sought to regain exclusive rights to the first season by mounting a legal challenge to the little nickel-and-dime distributors that were circulating those first 26 episodes.

The upshot? Based on its existing copyrights on all subsequent Star Trek properties, Paramount won the right to retroactively copyright the entire first season of Star Trek, in the process, successfully suing all of those little companies — the ones that thought they were in the clear selling public domain shows — right out of business."
https://thegolddiggers.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/whose-show-is-it-anyway/

Comments

[elf]

I think I've found it: http://chart.copyrightdata.com/c01B.html#s086

Paramount Pictures Corp. vs Leslie Rubinowitz, et al
USDC E.D.NY (6-26-1981) ¤ 217 USPQ 48

Rubinowitz’s company All-Star Video Corp. sold unauthorized videocassettes of Star Trek episodes. Rubinowitz argued that Paramount “published the Star Trek episodes without notice of copyright.” Since its original run on NBC, the episodes were “rerun by more than 140 stations in the United States”, which seemed to constitute publication, which in turn would necessitate a copyright notice in order for copyright to be enforcebale. “All-Star contend[ed] that Paramount’s syndication of the ‘Star Trek’ series to television stations throughout the country without a copyright notice dedicated the work to the public domain. Paramount argued that the leasing of the episodes solely for exhibition or broadcasting did not impair its common law copyright, and therefore, it presently holds a valid copyright.”

All-Star cited noted copyright expert Nimmer, who (writing about the 1976 Act) wrote: “Under the current Act the distribution of copies of a motion picture to television stations for broadcast purposes constitutes an act of publication.” (M. Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright, §4.11[B], 4.55 (1978)) The Court said that the Nimmer citation applied to instances where prints went to regional offices as part of distribution, thus subjecting the copyright owner to loss of control. Here, the licenses that Paramount signed specified that stations had to return the prints, not allow copying, not part with prints during lease, and limit their broadcast to only nonpaying audiences. “Paramount’s explicit and exhaustive reservation of rights cannot be interpreted as a general publication which would have placed the series in the public domain.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE: My understanding is that just the first season was without notice.)

I suspect a challenge to this lawsuit today might go the other direction - the claim hinged on the idea that they hadn't "published" the first season, but only "leased" it. (Although that might be irrelevant today, with copyright starting at the moment something is placed in a fixed form, instead of being "published.")

I haven't found a copy of the actual ruling, but I don't have access to Lexis or other law archives.

[morgandawn]

Now we're looking for the earlier case Paramount vs Thunderbird Films. Case citation mostly but any text welcomed. This is the one that held that Paramount did not own the first copyright to the first two seasons. The Rubinowitz case came 5 or so years later.

MD

[elf]

http://chart.copyrightdata.com/c02F.html#s131

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation [and ten other movie production companies] vs Thomas W. Dunnahoo, dba Thunderbird Films
USCA 9th Cir. (2-2-1981) ¤ 637 F.2d 1338, 209 USPQ 19

Tom Dunnahoo’s company Thunderbird Films sold its reproductions of films believed to be in the public domain. Buyers would order 16mm and Super 8 reproductions.

[morgandawn]

No, not this one. It was in the 1970s. They were sued several times. This one was reported in 1975-1976 in fanzines and later in 1978 http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fan_Fiction:IsIt_Legal,OrMerely_Tolerated%3F

"Thunderbird Films was the company that was selling 16mm prints of first and second season Star Trek episodes. They won the suit filed by Paramount.

During that time, the first two seasons were effectively in public domain, since the copyrights were not properly transferred when Gulf & Western acquired both Desilu and Paramount and dissolved Desilu - merging both studio and assets into Paramount.

After losing the suit against Thunderbird Films, Paramount was later able to reacquire ownership and copyright of those episodes in 1978."

[elf]

I saw that; am now looking to track down the details of the 1972 case against Dunnahoo/Thunderbird. Found a textbook, "Piracy in the Motion Picture Industry" by Kerry Segrave, that mentions it in Chapter 4; I can't see the Chap 4 notes at the end in my Google Books viewer. https://books.google.com/books?id=zcKSCgAAQBAJ&q=Thunderbird#v=snippet&q=thunderbird&f=false

[elf]

This may have useful info: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/637/637.F2d.1338.78-3242.html

I'm not up to wading through it right now to find out if the mentions of the original lawsuit include the right bits to track it down.

[morgandawn]

nope nothing on point there, no Star Trek, Paramount, Desilu or 1975 or 1976.

[elf]

"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" is one of the films in the case; it's season 3 ep 15 of ToS. This is the appeal ruling from the 1972 lawsuit against Thunderbird. I'm not sure how to use it to track down the original, and it's not referring to the one where Dunnahoo won; I was just hoping that finding that one would help track down the other.