Dc Comics v. Pacific Pictures Corporation , 545 F. App'x 678 ( 2013 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION NOV 21 2013
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
DC COMICS, No. 12-57245
Plaintiff - Appellee, D.C. No. 2:10-cv-03633-ODW-RZ
v.
MEMORANDUM*
PACIFIC PICTURES CORPORATION;
IP WORLDWIDE, LLC; IPW, LLC;
MARC TOBEROFF; MARK WARREN
PEARY, as personal representative of the
Estate of Joseph Shuster; LAURA
SIEGEL LARSON, individually and as
personal representative of the Estate of
Joanne Siegel; JEAN ADELE PEAVY,
Defendants - Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Otis D. Wright, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted May 23, 2013
Pasadena, California
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
Before: REINHARDT and THOMAS, Circuit Judges, and SEDWICK, District
Judge.**
In this appeal, we address another chapter in the long-running saga regarding
the ownership of copyrights in Superman—a story almost as old as the Man of
Steel himself.1 In 2003, Defendant Mark Peary, acting as executor of the estate of
Joseph Shuster (one of the two co-creators of Superman), filed a copyright
termination notice pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 304(d), seeking to reclaim the
copyrights to Superman that Shuster had assigned to Plaintiff DC Comics (“DC”)
in 1938. DC brought this action in response, seeking, in the claim that we review
here, a declaratory judgment that the notice of termination filed by the estate is
invalid. DC contends that, in an agreement (the “1992 Agreement”) it signed with
Joseph Shuster’s siblings (including his sister and sole heir, Jean Peavy), the
siblings received pensions for life in exchange for a revocation of the 1938
assignment of copyrights to DC and a re-grant to DC of all of Shuster’s copyrights
in Superman. Because the 1976 and 1998 statutes permitting the filing of
copyright termination notices permit only the termination of assignments
**
The Honorable John W. Sedwick, U.S. District Judge for the District
of Alaska, sitting by designation.
1
For recently-published histories, see Brad Ricca, Super Boys: The Amazing
Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—the Creators of Superman (2013) and
Larry Tye, Superman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero
(2012).
2
“executed before January 1, 1978,” 17 U.S.C. § 304(c), (d), DC contends that the
1992 Agreement forecloses the estate’s 2003 notice of termination, in that it leaves
no pre-1978 assignment to terminate (instead creating a new assignment effective
1992). The district judge agreed with DC, granting it partial summary judgment on
its claim for declaratory relief, as well as on another of its claims pled in the
alternative. The district judge entered final judgment in favor of DC on these
claims pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b), and we have jurisdiction pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 1291. We review the district judge’s grant of summary judgment de
novo, and we affirm.
1. The district judge correctly held that the 1992 Agreement, as a matter
of New York law,2 superseded the 1938 assignment of copyrights to DC, and
therefore operated to revoke that assignment and re-grant the Superman copyrights
to DC. The estate’s primary argument to the contrary is that the 1992 Agreement
2
The parties concede that New York contract law generally governs the
interpretation of the contract. We reject the defendants’ arguments that federal law
imposes certain additional requirements on a revocation and re-grant, such as that
it must be in express terms. See Classic Media Inc. v. Mewborn, 532 F.3d 978, 989
(9th Cir. 2008) (suggesting that an agreement could “expressly or impliedly
transfer” a termination right); see also Milne ex rel. Coyne v. Stephen Slesinger,
Inc., 430 F.3d 1036, 1046 (9th Cir. 2005) (quoting legislative history stating that
“nothing in this section or legislation is intended to change the existing state of the
law of contracts concerning the circumstances in which an author may terminate a
license, transfer or assignment”).
3
does not, in express terms, cancel the 1938 agreement. As New York courts have
held, however, “[t]here is no magic to the words ‘settlement’ or ‘compromise’” in
deciding whether one agreement supersedes another; “[t]he question is always
whether the subsequent agreement . . . is, as a matter of intention, expressed or
implied, a superseder of, or substitution for, the old agreement or dispute.”
Goldbard v. Empire State Mut. Ins. Co., 171 N.Y.S.2d 193, 198-99 (N.Y. App.
Div. 1958); see also Goldome Corp. v. Wittig, 634 N.Y.S.2d 308, 309 (N.Y. App.
Div. 1995) (holding that a mutual release of all causes of action was “clear and
unambiguous language” superseding all prior agreements). We agree with the
district judge that, under the plain text of the 1992 Agreement, which “fully settles
all claims” regarding “any copyrights, trademarks, or other property right in any
and all work created in whole or in part by . . . Joseph Shuster,” and further “now
grant[s] to [DC] any such rights,” it superseded the 1938 assignment as a matter of
New York law. We therefore hold that the agreement created a new, 1992
4
assignment of works to DC—an assignment unaffected by the 2003 notice of
termination.3
2. We reject the defendants’ contention that the 1992 Agreement cannot
foreclose the 2003 notice of termination because it is an “agreement to the
contrary” within the meaning of 17 U.S.C. § 304(c)(5). Defendants’ argument runs
counter to the plain text of the copyright termination statute, in that it would permit
the copyright termination provision to extinguish a post-1977 copyright
assignment, despite the statute’s express limitation to assignments “executed
3
Because we agree with the district judge that this conclusion is evident from
the text of the agreement, we find no error in his refusal to consider the extrinsic
evidence offered by defendants (which is, in any event, insufficient to overcome
the strong inference from the text itself). See W.W.W. Assocs., Inc. v. Giancontieri,
566 N.E.2d 639, 162-63 (N.Y. 1990) (under New York law, the parties’ intent may
be divined as a matter of law from the four corners of the contract, without looking
to extrinsic evidence); see also Rentways, Inc. v. O’Neill Milk & Cream Co., 126
N.E.2d 271, 273 (N.Y. 1955). We also deny defendants’ motion for judicial notice
of certain documents, because defendants offer no reason why they could not have
provided this evidence to the district judge. See Moore v. Czerniak, 574 F.3d
1092, 1116 (9th Cir. 2009), rev’d on other grounds, 131 S. Ct. 733 (2011).
The heirs argued explicitly below, as a ground for rejecting DC’s claim for
summary judgment, that the 1992 Agreement could not now bind the estate
because “the Shuster Executor was not a party to the 1992 Agreement”—an issue
of state law that they appeared to have tried to revive at oral argument. The district
judge’s ruling implicitly rejected this argument, holding that the estate was bound
by the 1992 Agreement. The factual and legal dispute regarding whether Joseph
Shuster’s sister acted as his executor when she signed the 1992 Agreement is a
potentially complex one; we do not address this question of state law, because the
heirs failed to raise it in their opening brief. See Dream Games of Arizona, Inc. v.
PC Onsite, 561 F.3d 983, 994-95 (9th Cir. 2009); Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(9)(A).
5
before January 1, 1978.” 17 U.S.C. § 304(d); see Milne ex rel. Coyne v. Stephen
Slesinger, Inc., 430 F.3d 1036, 1048 (9th Cir. 2005) (“[t]he CTEA’s termination
provision does not apply to post-1978 agreements”). In Milne, we noted that the
interpretation of the statute defendants favor would conflict with extensive
legislative history endorsing the continued ability of authors (or their heirs) to
extinguish a prior grant and replace it with a new one:
Congress specifically stated that it did not intend for the [copyright
termination] statute to “prevent the parties to a transfer or license from
voluntarily agreeing at any time to terminate an existing grant and
negotiating a new one[.]” H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 127 (1976),
reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5743. Congress further stated
that “nothing in this section or legislation is intended to change the
existing state of the law of contracts concerning the circumstances in
which an author may terminate a license, transfer or assignment.”
H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 142, 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 5758. Congress
therefore anticipated that parties may contract, as an alternative to
statutory termination, to revoke a prior grant by replacing it with a
new one. Indeed, Congress explicitly endorsed the continued right of
“parties to a transfer or license” to “voluntarily agree[ ] at any time to
terminate an existing grant and negotiat[e] a new one.” H.R. Rep. No.
94-1476, at 127, 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 5743.
Milne, 430 F.3d at 1045-46 (all edits but first in original). Both our holding in
Milne and this legislative history answer the heirs’ contentions that the estate could
not have entered into a revocation and re-grant prior to the passage of the 1998
Copyright Term Extension Act and its creation of the termination right in 17
U.S.C. § 304(d) and addition of an executor to the list of statutory owners of a
6
termination interest, 17 U.S.C. § 304(c)(2)(D).4 Our later decision in Classic
Media Inc. v. Mewborn, which defendants argue should govern rather than Milne,
is inapposite, in that it involved an agreement that did not extinguish the pre-1978
assignment that was the subject of the notice of termination. 532 F.3d 978, 989
(9th Cir. 2008). Defendants’ other arguments effectively ask us to overturn our
decision in Milne—something this panel is not generally empowered to do. See
Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 900 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc).
3. Defendants also appeal the district judge’s grant of summary
judgment on DC’s third claim, regarding the invalidity of certain agreements
signed by the heirs—including one between the heirs and a corporation headed by
their attorney, Marc Toberoff, in which they formed a joint venture to exploit any
recovered Superman works. The heirs concede that their alienation of their
putative future interests in the Superman copyright was contrary to the copyright
4
Since our decision in Milne, at least one other circuit has adopted a similar
rule. The Second Circuit has held that, “provided that a post-1978 agreement
effectively terminates a pre-1978 grant, Congress did not manifest any intent for
the earlier agreement to survive simply for purposes of exercising a termination
right in the future.” See Penguin Group (USA) Inc. v. Steinbeck, 537 F.3d 193, 203
(2d Cir. 2008); see also id. at 202-03 (“We do not read the phrase ‘agreement to
the contrary so broadly that it would include any agreement that has the effect of
eliminating a termination right . . . . We cannot see how the 1994 Agreement could
be an ‘agreement’ to the contrary solely because it had the effect of eliminating
termination rights that did not yet exist.”).
7
statute. See 17 U.S.C. § 304(c)(6)(D). We note that their failure (and that of
Toberoff, their attorney and business partner) to disclose this information in the
2003 notice of termination itself appears to violate the relevant regulations
governing notices of termination. See 37 CFR § 201.10(b)(1)(vii). Because,
however, this claim was pled in the alternative, and because we affirm the district
judge’s grant of summary judgment on DC’s other claim (for declaratory
judgment), we dismiss as moot this aspect of the appeal.
AFFIRMED.
8
FILED
DC Comics v. Pacific Pictures Corp; No. 12-57245 NOV 21 2013
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
Thomas, Circuit Judge, dissenting: U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
I respectfully disagree with my colleagues.
1. The 1992 Agreement could not have affected the statutory right of
termination. The Copyright Act of 1976 gave the author of a copyrighted work, or
his widow or surviving child, the ability to terminate a grant of copyrights in the
author’s work executed before January 1, 1978. 17 U.S.C. § 304(c); Milne ex rel.
Coyne v. Stephen Slesinger, Inc., 430 F.3d 1036, 1040 (9th Cir. 2005). Thus, in
1992, no one except the surviving spouse or child could exercise the right of
termination. In 1998—six years after the parties executed the agreement at the
center of this appeal—Congress extended the termination right to authors’
executors, administrators, personal representatives, and trustees. 17 U.S.C.
§ 304(a)(1)(C)(iii), (d), Pub. L. No. 105-298 (1998). Therefore, at the time the
1992 Agreement was executed, neither Frank nor Jean had the power to exercise
the statutory right of termination.
Thus, the question is whether the 1992 Agreement was a novation that
validly revoked and re-granted Joe Shuster’s 1938 copyright grant. If not, then the
agreement is either (1) simply a pension agreement that had no effect on the heirs’
later-created statutory termination rights; or (2) an “agreement to the contrary”
under 17 U.S.C. § 304(c)(5) because it waives the heirs’ termination rights, see
Patry on Copyright § 7:46 (stating that section 304(c)(5)’s protection of
termination rights “notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary” “is intended to
make Congress’s intent as clear as humanly possible: an author cannot agree to
waive his or her termination right”).
2. Under New York law, proof of a novation requires four elements:
"'(1) a previously valid obligation; (2) agreement of all parties to a new contract;
(3) extinguishment of the old contract; and (4) a valid new contract.'" Healy v.
Healy, 594 N.Y.S.2d 90, 91 (N.Y. App. Div. 1993) (quoting Callanan v. Micheli
Contr. Corp., 508 N.Y.S.2d 711, 712 (N.Y. App. Div. 1986)); see also
Wasserstrom v. Interstate Litho Corp., 495 N.Y.S.2d 217, 219 (N.Y. App. Div.
1985) (stating that these four elements "must be present" to establish a valid
novation). In my view, the elements are not satisfied.
First, there is no indication in the 1992 Agreement that the prior agreement
was extinguished by the new agreement. There is no statement to that effect in the
1992 Agreement and, in fact, the prior copyright grant is not referenced at all.
Thus, the third element is not satisfied. See, e.g., First Call Friendly Note Buyers
v. McMenamy, 837 N.Y.S.2d 363, 364 (N.Y.App. Div. 2007) (holding that there
was no novation “inasumuch as there is no indication that the original contract was
extinguished”); see also Wasserstrom, 495 N.Y.S.2d at 219 (noting that allegedly
-2-
superseding agreement “makes absolutely no reference to” allegedly superseded
agreement “and cannot be considered to have modified it in any way”).
Further, this record is not sufficient to establish that Joe Shuster's siblings
had the authority in 1992 to revoke and supersede his 1938 copyright grant. At
that time, Frank was a third-party beneficiary of Joe's agreement with DC, under
which DC agreed to pay Frank certain survivor benefits; Jean was a stranger to that
agreement. Jean had identified herself as Joe’s executrix and sole heir in state
probate court and in her communications with DC, but Joe's estate hadn't been
probated, nor had Jean been appointed his executrix. Although title to property
transfers to heirs upon death, Cal. Probate Code § 7000, that transfer of title is
subject to probate administration, Cal. Probate Code § 7001. In 1992, California
law required probate of any estate in which the value of the personal property
exceeded $60,000. Cal. Probate Code § 13100 (1992). Under California law, Jean
could not dispose of Joe’s copyright interests before probate. See 14 Witkin,
Summary of Cal. Law, Wills § 405 (10th ed. 2005 Probate law). Thus, neither
Frank nor Jean had the authority to enter into a novation of the original contract.
Therefore, I conclude that the 1992 Agreement did not effect a valid
novation under New York law.
3. Given that the 1992 Agreement had no effect on the statutory right of
-3-
termination and did not effect a novation, the statutory right of termination became
part of Joe Schuster’s estate. The record is not developed fully enough for me to
determine what consequences actually flow from that conclusion. It may well be,
under California probate law, that the ultimate outcome is unchanged. But on the
record before us, and the narrow question presented in this appeal, I must
respectfully dissent.
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