United States Ninth Circuit

In this copyright case, the district court granted summary judgment against plaintiff on his claims for accounting, declaratory relief, and copyright infringement and assessed costs against plaintiff. The judgment of the district court is reversed, the assessment of costs against plaintiff is vacated, and the case is remanded, where: 1) the 1999 agreement, giving Valli and Gaudio exclusive right to use aspects of DeVito's and Macioci's lives related to the Four Seasons music group in the development of a musical, constituted a transfer of ownership of DeVito's derivative-work right in the autobiography, rather than a nonexclusive license; 2) a co-owner of a copyright may transfer that right without permission from his co-owner, and cannot be liable to another co-owner for infringement; 3) because copyright co-owners must account to one another for any profits earned by exploiting that copyright, the district court erred in rejecting plaintiff's claims for accounting and declaratory relief; and 4) defendants failed to establish the existence of a license as an affirmative defense to copyright infringement.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/10/2015
• Published 02/10/2015

Judges

• O'Scannlain

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel