Patterson v. Century Productions, Inc.

19 F. Supp. 30, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2198
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedApril 21, 1937
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 19 F. Supp. 30 (Patterson v. Century Productions, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Patterson v. Century Productions, Inc., 19 F. Supp. 30, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2198 (S.D.N.Y. 1937).

Opinion

LEIBELL, District Judge.

The complainant, Frederick B. Patterson, while on a hunting trip in Africa between April and November, 1927, took moving pictures of wild animal scenes on some 15,000 feet of film. The films were later developed by the Eastman Kodak Company. About December, 1927, complainant engaged experienced men to cut and edit the film with appropriate titles. There was added to the film a map of Africa on which was traced the course of complainant’s journey during which the animal scenes were filmed. The editing bf the film required several months. When completed, it comprised 6,000 feet of film on 8 reels and was given the title “Shooting Big Game with a Camera.” Part of the title of the film contained the notice “Copyright 1928 by F. B. Patterson, Pres, of National Cash Register Co.”

On April' 12, 1928, complainant filed with the librarian of Congress an application for registration of copyright of the motion picture under section 11 of the Copyright statute (as amended, 17 U.S.C.A. § 11). . The application gave the “title” 'of the picture as “Shooting Big Game with a Camera” and its “description” as “a faithful representation pictorially of the incidents and hazards encountered on a hunting trip in Africa.” The .prints inclosed with the application were “two sheets of photographic paper having six different sections of the film of the above entitled motion picture - reproduced thereon.” Complainant received from the Copyright Office a certificate of Copyright Registration certifying “that the title, description, and two prints taken from different sections of the complete Motion Picture Not a Photo-play and not reproduced in copies for sale” had been deposited in the office under the provisions of the act and “that registration of a claim to copyright” for the first term of 28 years had been duly made in the name of complainant; that the “title of motion picture not a photoplay” was “Shooting Big Game with a Camera,” by Frederick Beck *32 Patterson, of the United States, and that the title, description, and 6 prints were received April 12, 1928. The certificate bears the signature of the Register of Copyrights and the seal of the Copyright Office.

Some time between February and April, 1928, the film was exhibited to about 24,000 employees and their families at the National Cash Register Company at Dayton, Ohio, of which the complainant was president. No admission was charged at those exhibitions. About a year after the copyright was registered, copies of the film were loaned, with■out' charge, to religious, educational, and social organizations, principally through the agency of the Y. M. C. A. on the express condition that they in turn would not charge any admission at any exhibition of the film. The original negative was kept in Dayton. There were 6 or 8 positive films, some of the standard 35 millimeter size and others 16 millimeters for the smaller sized projection machines.

In some way the defendant Cummins illegally got possession of one of complainant’s positive prints in 1932 and at the direction of Cummins a duplicate negative of a number of the scenes on .complainant’s film was made at the laboratory of the Empire Laboratories, Inc., another defendant. The positive film, from which Cummins had the duplicate negative made, contained the copyright notice of Patterson. Between 1,000 and 1,500 feet of wild animal scenes, pirated from complainant’s film, were incorporated in a film entitled, “The Jungle Killer,” which Cummins caused to be copyrighted on October 3, 1932, in United States Copyright Office in the name of Century Productions, Inc., as “a motion picture not a photoplay reproduced in copies for sale” under 'section 9 of the Copyright statute (17 U.S.C.A. § 9), claiming August 15, 1932, as the date of publication. Century Productions, Inc., was a corporation owned or controlled by Cummins. He was one of its officers and directors. The Empire Laboratories, Inc., now in bankruptcy, was a corporation owned or controlled by the defendant Fiedler.

The film “The Jungle Killer” was exhibited at the Central Theatre in New York City in November, 1932. It was viewed by Patterson and the two experts who had edited and assembled Patterson’s film “Shooting Big Game with a Camera.” They made a list of the scenes of “The Jungle Killer” that were taken from F. B. Patterson’s motion picture “Shooting Big Game with a Camera.” The list covers more than two typewritten pages. Cummins was notified at once of the infringement of complainant’s copyright and this action was started against the defendants on December 13, 1932. The offending film was seized by the marshal under a writ of seizure of this court and impounded. Later by stipulation the defendant Cummins was permitted to cut out and remove so much of the impounded film as did not infringe complainant’s copyright. There was some testimony showing that he removed more than the noninfringing portions and further that in 1935 he sent to Europe (“by mistake,” he says) a lavender print of the whole picture “The Jungle Killer.” Cummins also admitted that the film had been exhibited in Cincinnati November 4, 1932, and in Columbus, Ohio, on November 11, 1932, prior to the showing in New York.

In another action in this court instituted by Davenport Quigley Expedition, Inc., against these same defendants, 18 F.Supp. 974, the plaintiff in that action claimed that these defendants had infringed its film “Jango” by purloining certain other scenes (not involved in this present action) and incorporating them in the film “The Jungle Killer.” That case was tried in this court before Judge Hulbert who filed an opinion February 19, 1937, from which the following is quoted:

“To establish title to other scenes in the ‘Jungle Killer’ claimed by the plaintiff to constitute infringement of its film ‘Jango,’ the defendants put in evidence a bill of sale purported to have been executed in New York at a time when the testimony indicated that the vendor was in California.
“The defendant Cummins entered' into a contract with Carveth Wells, explorer and author, to synchronize, edit, and furnish the dialogue for the ‘Jungle Killer’ film, as well as for the personal appearance of Mr. Wells and Zetta Robard, his wife. Mr. Wells testified that after he had been shown a collection of motion picture film which Cummins claimed to have purchased showing an exploration in Africa, Mr. Wells called his attention to the fact that many of the scenes were familiar and known to him to have been taken by various explorers in other countries, as well as in Africa, and that all film to which Mr. Wells took objection must be deleted. Thereupon, Mr. Cummins requested Wells to lend him a copy of his own picture ‘Hell Below Zero’ so that he might get some ideas for the *33 arrangement of the ‘Jungle Killer.’ Mr. Wells lent him the film requested and subsequently discovered that Mr. Cummins had lifted certain scenes from the Wells’ picture and incorporated them in his own, without Wells’ knowledge or consent.
“I dismiss entirely as incredible upon the proof, and as unfounded in fact, the claim of the defendants Century Productions; Inc., and Cummins, of a valid title to the plagiarized scenes.”

Mr. Wells made a deposition to the same effect in this, the Patterson action. Likewise, in this present case the defendant Cummins claimed that he acquired title to the plagiarized scenes of Patterson’s film by purchase of a film from a man named Chester in 1930.

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Bluebook (online)
19 F. Supp. 30, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2198, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/patterson-v-century-productions-inc-nysd-1937.