This article first appeared in Entertainment Law Matters, a Frankfurt Kurnit legal blog.
It was only last week that we posted on the Ninth Circuit's May 4th decision in Montz v. Pilgrim Films & Television — an important idea submission case holding that an implied-in-fact contract was not preempted by the Copyright Act. We wrote then that the preemption debate was sure to continue. We just didn't realize how soon — and with a different result.
In Forest Park Pictures v. Universal Television Network, Inc., a production company and two affiliated individual plaintiffs alleged they developed the characters, concepts, themes, and story lines for a TV series titled "Housecall." The show was to be based on the experiences of a doctor who relocates to Malibu to make housecalls on the rich and famous. Plaintiffs said they pitched the show to USA Network which rejected the idea. And so they were upset to find, four years later, that USA Network was distributing "Royal Pains"— starring Mark Feuerstein and Henry Winkler — about a doctor who relocates to the Hamptons to become a doctor to the stars.
In their case brought in federal court in New York, the plaintiffs advanced the usual idea submission claim: they said they had an implied contract with the network defendants to receive payment for the use of their idea. (It was not clear to us why the plaintiffs eschewed a copyright claim.) The defendants, like other studios and distributors before them, argued the alleged contract claim was superseded or "preempted" by the federal Copyright Act. (Section 301 of the Copyright Act of 1976 preempts state claims when the creative work is within the subject matter of copyright and the state law grants legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright.)
Not surprisingly, the plaintiffs asked the court to apply California law, which — as we noted in the "Ghost Hunters" decision — has been favorable to writers and agents claiming misappropriation of ideas unveiled in pitch meetings. But the district court said that whether a federal law preempts a state law claim is a federal question — a finding that meant federal law applied.
Citing Second Circuit preemption cases, the court next found that the claim to protect characters and story lines was within the subject matter of copyright. Moreover, the breach of an implied contract to be paid for the use of "ideas or materials" for a television series was "equivalent to the exclusive rights protected by the copyright law." The court dismissed the claim and with it, the lawsuit.
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