Maljack Productions, Inc. v. UAV Corp.

I. Background

A. Procedural Background.

Plaintiffs Maljack Productions, Inc. (“Maljack”) and Batjac Productions, Inc. (“Batjae”) (collectively “Plaintiffs”) brought suit against defendants UAV Corporation (“UAV”) and Goodtimes Home Video Corporation (“Good-times”) for infringement of Plaintiffs’ alleged rights in two versions of the screenplay for the motion picture McClintock! (the “screenplays”). Plaintiffs also brought suit in both cases against Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights (“Register”), because of the Register’s refusal to register the screenplays for copyright. The Register intervened in both cases. The Court consolidated Plaintiffs’ actions against UAV and Goodtimes on January 23,1997 to determine whether the Register properly refused to issue a certificate of copyright for the screenplays.

On March 24, 1997, the following motions came before the Court: (1) consolidated motions for summary judgment by all parties concerning the propriety of the Register’s refusal to register the McClintock! screenplays for copyright and (2) cross-motions for partial summary judgment by UAV and Plaintiffs in civil case number 96-749 seeking a determination of whether UAV infringed Batjac’s copyright in a home video version of McClintock!. After reviewing and considering the materials submitted by the parties and hearing oral argument, the Court finds that the Register properly refused to register the McClintock! screenplays and that UAV infringed Batjac’s 1993 McClintock! copyright. Therefore, the Court grants summary judgment in favor of all defendants on the issue of registrability of the screenplays and in favor of Plaintiffs on the issue of UAVs liability for copyright infringement.

B. Historical Background.

In 1962, James Edward Grant wrote an original screenplay for the motion picture McClintock!. On October 16, 1962, Grant assigned the rights to all versions of the screenplay to Batjae. The two versions of the screenplay at issue in this case are: (1) the version containing revisions through October 9, 1962 and (2) the version containing revisions through November 23,1962.

In 1963, Batjac produced the motion picture McClintock! from the screenplay. Batjac registered the motion picture for copyright in 1963 but it did not separately register the screenplay or any versions of the screenplay. The copyright was eligible for renewal in 1991, but Batjac failed to renew the copyright for a second term. Accordingly, the initial copyright term expired and the film entered the public domain at the end of 1991.

In 1993, Batjac created a “panned and scanned” version of the McClintock! motion picture for the videoeassette and television market. Panning and scanning is the process by which motion pictures are adapted from the wide screen theater format known as “Panavision” to a narrower format capable of fitting on a television screen. The “aspect ratio” of the motion picture (i.e., the ratio of the screen length to the screen height) was 2.35:1. Batjae reduced the aspect ratio of the 1993 version of McClintock! to 1.33:1. In other words, the television version of McClintoek! uses only about 56% of each frame from the 1963 picture. In addition to reconciling the aspect ratios, Batjac edited the motion picture’s monaural soundtrack by remixing, resequencing, sweetening, equalizing, balancing, and stereoizing it, and also added entirely new sound material.

On February 23, 1993, Batjac transferred exclusive domestic home video rights in the 1993 McClintock! to Maljack for a term of years.

On April 12, 1993, Batjac registered the 1993 McClintock! with the Copyright Office as a “derivative work.” The registration certificate lists Batjac as the “copyright claimant.” The preexisting material is listed as the “previously published motion picture.” The material added to the work is listed as “new editing of visual and sound material (including editing for new visual format, sound remixing, resequencing, sweetening, *1419 equalization, and balancing) and addition of new sound material.”

In 1993, UAV began producing and distributing video cassettes of McClintock!. UAVs videoeassette version of McClintock! was photographically identical and largely aurally identical to Plaintiffs’ 1993 McClintock!. UAVs only change was to replace the original soundtrack music with new music. UAV later created and released its own pan and scan version of the public domain McClintoek! and ceased distributing the copy of the 1993 McClintock!.

In March 1996, Batjac attempted to register the McClintock! screenplays for copyright, but the Register refused. The Register rejected Batjac’s applications because the screenplays acquired statutory copyright along with the motion picture in 1963 and then entered the public domain along with the motion picture in 1991. Thus, there was nothing left to register for copyright unless Batjac could show that there was new material in the screenplays that had not been incorporated into the motion picture.

II. Discussion

A. Standard On Summary Judgment.

Summary judgment is appropriate when there “is no genuine issue of material fact and ... the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986).

In order to defeat a motion for summary judgment, there must be facts in dispute that are both genuine and material, i.e., there must be facts upon which a fact finder could “reasonably find” for the non-moving party. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. 242, 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2512, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). The court does not weigh the evidence or make credibility determinátions; rather, the court only determines whether there are any disputed issues and, if so, whether those issues are both genuine and material. Id.

The initial burden of establishing that there is no genuine issue of material fact lies with the moving party. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323, 106 S.Ct. at 2552-53; British Airways Board v. Boeing Co., 585 F.2d 946, 951 (9th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 981, 99 S.Ct. 1790, 60 L.Ed.2d 241 (1979). Once the movant has met this burden by producing evidence that, if left uncontroverted, would entitle the moving party to a directed verdict at trial, the burden shifts to the non-movant to present specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue of material fact. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e); Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324, 106 S.Ct. at 2553; Lake Nacimiento Ranch Co. v. San Luis Obispo, 841 F.2d 872, 876 (9th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 827, 109 S.Ct. 79, 102 L.Ed.2d 55 (1988).

B. The Register Properly Refused Batjac’s Application to Register the McClintock! Screenplays for Copyright.

UAV, Goodtimes, the Register, and Plaintiffs all move for summary judgment on the propriety of the Register’s refusal to register the two McClintock! screenplays.

The Court holds that the Register properly refused to register the screenplays. The screenplays, to the extent that they were contained in the motion picture, acquired statutory copyright along with the motion picture after the motion picture was published with proper copyright notice in 1963. The screenplays then entered the public domain at the end of 1991 when Batjac failed to renew the copyright.

1. Copyright law background.

The copyright for the original McClintock! motion picture was secured under the Copyright Act of 1909, 17 U.S.C. § 1 et seq. (repealed effective 1978) (“1909 Act”). Under the 1909 Act, there was a dichotomy between federal and state law. See 1 M. Nimmer & D. Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright § 2.02 (1996) (“Nimmer”). Unpublished works were protected by state common law or statute. See id.; see also 17 U.S.C. § 2 (“Nothing in this title shall be construed to annul or limit the right of the author ... of an unpublished work, at common law or in equity, to prevent the copying, publication, or use of such unpublished work without his consent, and to obtain damages therefor.”). This protection was “referred to *1420 somewhat inaccurately” as common law copyright. 1 Nimmer § 2.02 at 2-19. Common law protection began upon creation of the work and ended upon publication of the work. After the work was published, the only protection available was statutory copyright. See id.

The Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq., (“1976 Act”) eliminated common law protection. In its place, the 1976 Act imbued all original works with statutory protection. 1 Works created before January 1, 1978 but not copyrighted or in the public domain as of that date lost their common law protection and gained statutory protection as unpublished works. See 17 U.S.C. § 303. The statutory protection for works created but unpublished as of January 1, 1978 endures until 50 years after the author’s death or until the year 2002, whichever is longer. Id. Furthermore, for works created but unpublished as of 1978 that are published before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright extends until at least 2027. Id.

Under the 1909 Act, publication of a work with proper notice secured statutory copyright protection. 17 U.S.C. § 10 (repealed effective 1978). Statutory copyright provided authors an initial 28-year term of copyright protection and a 28-year renewal term. 17 U.S.C. § 24 (repealed effective 1978). Prior to the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992, which amended the 1976 Act to provide for automatic renewal, copyright owners had to apply for renewal. 2 The 1976 Act changed the renewal term for works copyrighted under the 1909 Act by affording works in their initial copyright term as of 1978 a renewal term of 47 years. 17 U.S.C. § 304. The 1976 Act gave works already in their renewal term an extra 19 years of protection. 17 U.S.C. § 304. Works that were unpublished as of 1978, such as Plaintiffs allege the McClintock! screenplays to have been, are not entitled to renewal. 17 U.S.C. §§ 302, 303.

Under the 1909 Act, if the initial copyright term expired without renewal, the work entered the public domain. If the copyright was renewed, the work entered the public domain at the conclusion of the renewal term. Alternatively, a copyrighted work entered the public domain if it was published without statutorily correct copyright notice. See Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207, 233, 110 S.Ct. 1750, 1766-67, 109 L.Ed.2d 184 (1990). Under the 1976 Act, a work enters the public domain only if the owner fails to comply with the statutory notice requirements or the cure provisions of section 405(a).

2. Publication of derivative works.

A derivative work is a work based on one or more preexisting works. 3 Í7 U.S.C. § 101. A motion picture is a derivative work; the motion picture screenplay is one of the preexisting works. Derivative works are copyrightable. 17 U.S.C. § 103.

It is clear that under section 7 of the 1909 Act, publication of a derivative work does not affect the validity of a statutory copyright in the preexisting work even though the preexisting work was incorporated into the derivative work. 17 U.S.C. § 7 (repealed effective 1978); see Stewart, 495 U.S. at 230-36, 110 S.Ct. at 1765-68; see also 17 U.S.C. § 103(b) (same result under the 1976 Act). Therefore, even if a derivative work enters the public domain, the preexisting work, if copyrighted and published with proper notice, remains copyrighted. See Russell v. Price, 612 F.2d 1123 (9th Cir.1979) (holding that the owner of a statutory copyright in a preexisting work can sue for infringement in the event that a public domain derivative work is used without authorization by the owner of the copyright in the preexisting work); see *1421 also G. Ricordi & Co. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 189 F.2d 469 (2d Cir.1951) (same).

Plaintiffs assert that section 7 of the 1909 Act also protects preexisting works with only common law “copyright.” Accordingly, Plaintiffs assert that publication of the McClintock! motion picture could not have been a publication of the screenplays — even only to the extent contained in the motion picture — because if the screenplays were published in 1963, the screenplays entered the public domain in 1991 along with the motion picture, thereby abrogating Plaintiffs’ common law rights in the underlying works. Plaintiffs contend that the screenplays retained their common law protection until 1978, when they gained statutory protection under the 1976 Act.

Defendants contend that to the extent the screenplays were incorporated into the film, the 1963 publication of the McClintock! motion picture published the screenplays, thereby investing the published portions of the screenplays with statutory copyright and divesting any common law rights in the works,

a) Works that would be protected only by virtue of their status as unpublished works are published to the extent that they are incorporated into published derivative works.

In Classic Film Museum v. Warner Bros., Inc., 453 F.Supp. 852 (D.Me.1978), affd, 597 F.2d 13 (1st Cir.1979), both the district court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals published opinions addressing the identical issue confronting this Court. The district court held, and the court of appeals affirmed, that the expiration of a motion picture copyrighted under the 1909 Act that was caused by non-renewal of the copyright dedicated the entire film to the public and that further exploitation of the film could not be retained by an assertion of common law copyright in the parts of the screenplay that were embodied in the film. Because of its conclusion that the expiration of the statutory copyright in the film placed the entire film into the public domain regardless of any alleged common law rights in any underlying works, the district court expressly declined to consider the effect of section 7 on common law rights or whether the publication of the motion picture constituted a publication of the screenplay. The court of appeals did not make any mention of either issue.

Both courts distinguished the Ricordi/Russell line of cases based on the fact that all of those decisions involved underlying works with statutory rather than common law copyrights. Both courts also noted that in the Ricordi/Russell line of cases, the underlying copyright would expire at the end of the statutory copyright term, whereas works with asserted common law rights would have perpetual protection so long as they remained unpublished. “To permit this result would frustrate the whole concept of limited monopoly in copyright law.” Classic Film, 453 F.Supp. at 856; see Classic Film, 597 F.2d at 14-15.

The Classic Film holding is consistent with the Copyright Office’s long-standing position that the portions of a screenplay embodied in a motion picture are published upon publication of the motion picture. See U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of Copyright Offices Practices II at § 910.04 (1984) (“Compendium II”).

Nimmer cites Classic Film approvingly, stating that the courts reached the proper result even though neither court addressed the publication issue. Nimmer § 4.12[B]. Nimmer concludes, “Because a derivative work by definition to some extent incorporates a copy of the preexisting work, publication of the former necessarily constitutes publication of the copied portion of the latter.” Id. § 4.12[A] at 4-60 to 4-61.

In a similar case in a different setting, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing the district court, held that under the 1976 Act, the statutory rights of an assertedly unpublished work did not survive entry of the derivative work into the public domain. 4 See Harris Custom Builders, Inc. v. Hoffmeyer, 92 F.3d 517, 520 (7th Cir.1996).

*1422 Under the 1976 Act, a work remains copyrighted so long as it is unpublished, it is published with notice, or, if it is published without notice, it is registered within five years and subsequently published with notice. 17 U.S.C. § 405. Where the underlying work is copyrighted and published with proper notice, publication of a derivative work does not affect the validity of the copyright in a preexisting work and, therefore, as under the 1909 Act, an underlying work copyrighted under the 1976 Act remains copyrighted even if the derivative work enters the public domain. See 17 U.S.C. § 103(b); Harris, 92 F.3d at 519.

In Harris, the plaintiff owned the copyright for a set of architectural plans. The plaintiff published a brochure advertising a house built from the plans that contained abbreviated drawings based on the plans. The brochure did not contain a copyright notice and was not registered for copyright. Publication of the brochure without copyright notice tentatively put the work into the public domain, and when the plaintiff failed to cure the defect, the work entered the public domain permanently.

When a builder used the drawings in the plaintiffs brochure to build a house, the firm brought suit against the builder, alleging infringement of the underlying copyright in the assertedly unpublished building plans. The plaintiff argued that the underlying plans retained their protection as unpublished works and that only the portion of the derivative brochure separate from the plans entered the public domain. Id. at 519-20.

The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that the firm could not maintain its infringement action because the plaintiff published the building plans to the extent that the plans were contained in the brochure. Accordingly, the entirety of the brochure entered the public domain when the plaintiff published the brochure without the requisite copyright notice and without curing that deficiency. The court expressly held that “ ‘publication of a derivative work constitutes a publication of the preexisting work contained therein.’ ” Id. at 520 (quoting Nimmer § 4.12[A] n. 2).

' The Harris court noted that the result would be different if the underlying work had been separately registered for copyright. In that case, the court stated that under Stewart, the failure of the derivative copyright would not affect the underlying copyright. Where, however, the plaintiff claimed copyright based on a work’s status as unpublished, the court held that Stewart did not apply because the work had been published.

The court noted that the result might also be different if a stranger had published the derivative work without permission from the owner of the underlying work. “Congress could not have intended that the various legal consequences of publication ... would be triggered by the unauthorized act of an infringer or other stranger to the copyright.” Id. at 520-21 (quoting Nimmer § 4.04). 5 Where, however, the owner of the underlying work publishes derivative works, “it can no longer claim a copyright based on their unpublished nature.” Id. at 521.

Althoúgh dicta, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has stated that:

[The plaintiff] does not argue that the synchronization rights were part of the motion picture copyright, because they would have expired when the motion picture expired. It also does not argue that the synchronization rights existed separately from the motion picture and music copyright; if that were the case, because [the plaintiff] did not copyright the synchronization rights, they would be part of the public domain.

Maljack v. GoodTimes, 81 F.3d 881, 885 n. 3 (9th Cir.1996). Accordingly, it appears that the Ninth Circuit, if faced with the issue before the Court, would find that the screenplays were published with the motion picture and entered the public domain with the motion picture.

b) Stewart only applies to preexisting works that are protected by statute as published works.

*1423 Plaintiffs disagree with the Classic Film and Harris decisions and assert that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Stewart dictates the opposite result.

In Stewart, the author of several short stories owned the statutory copyrights for the works. The author assigned his right to make motion picture versions of one of the stories to a production company. The author also agreed to renew the copyright for the story and to assign the same motion picture rights to the company. In 1953, actor Jimmy Stewart and director Alfred Hitchcock formed a production company that obtained the motion picture rights from the original assignee’s suecessors-in-interest. The author died in 1968 without renewing the copyright, and the right to renew passed to the author’s trust, which renewed the copyright at the appropriate time. Because an assignee of renewal rights takes only an expectancy, and because the author died before the copyright was renewed, defendants did not receive the renewal motion picture rights. Accordingly, the plaintiff (the author’s trust’s assignee) brought a copyright infringement suit against the defendants for distributing the motion picture during the renewal term.

The defendants argued that the right of a copyright owner to prohibit use of the preexisting work is extinguished once the preexisting work is incorporated into the derivative work, assuming that the author of the underlying work agreed to assign his renewal rights to the owner of the derivative work. The Court, however, declined to “read into the Copyright Act a limitation on the statutorily created rights of the owner of [the] underlying work.” Stewart, 495 U.S. at 216, 110 S.Ct. at 1758.

Section 7 of the 1909 Act states that “the publication of [derivative works] shall not affect the force or validity of any subsisting copyright upon the matter employed or any part thereof, or be construed to imply an exclusive right to such use of the original works, or to secure or extend copyright in such original works.” In Stewart, the Supreme Court reached the unsurprising conclusion that section 7 of the 1909 Act meant what it said:

[PJublication of the derivative work does not “affect the force or validity of any subsisting copyright upon the matter employed;” publication of the derivative work does not mean that use of the original work in other works is precluded; and publication does not mean that a copyright in the original work shall be secured, e.g., if the work was in the public domain, or extended, as where the original work was copyrighted before the date that the derivative work is copyrighted.

Id. at 231, 110 S.Ct. at 1765 (quoting 17 U.S.C. § 7 (repealed effective 1978)). Section 7 thus serves to “preserve the copyright status of the original work: Publication does not operate to prohibit other uses of the original work or to ‘secure or extend copyright in such original works.’ ” Id. at 231-32, 110 S.Ct. at 1765-66.

Plaintiffs assert that section 7 applies with equal force where the underlying copyright was a common law right, citing Jim Henson Productions v. John T. Brady & Assoc., 867 F.Supp. 175 (S.D.N.Y.1994), Shoptalk, Ltd. v. Concorde-New Horizons, 897 F.Supp. 144 (S.D.N.Y.1995), and Cordon Art B.V. v. Jerome Walker, 40 U.S.P.Q.2d 1506, 1996 WL 672969 (S.D.Cal.1996). The Court respectfully disagrees with these decisions.

The word “copyright” as used in section 7, the section upon which Plaintiffs’ analysis of Stewart is premised, refers only to statutory copyright. The 1909 Act was very precise when it addressed common law rights, which the statute explicitly states are not to be limited or annulled. See, e.g., 17 U.S.C. § 2 (repealed effective 1978) (referring to the “right[s] of the author or .proprietor of an unpublished work”). Therefore, section 7 and the Stewart opinion must be read to refer only to a subsisting statutory copyright. Section 7 and Stewart should not be read to indirectly dictate that publication of a motion picture cannot constitute publication of an underlying screenplay simply because the effect of that finding would be to replace the screenplay’s common law protection with statutory protection that Plaintiffs permitted to lapse through non-renewal. Had Congress wanted section 7 to apply to common *1424 law rights, it would have stated that section 7 applied to common law rights.

There is only one sentence in Stewart that gives the Court pause: “The language change [in section 7 from ‘copyright’ to ‘publication’] was suggested only to ensure that the publication of a ‘new compiled work’ without proper notice, including smaller portions that had not been previously published and separately copyrighted, would not result in those sections moving into the public domain.” Id. at 233, 110 S.Ct. at 1766 (emphasis added) (citing Estie Stoll, Note, Derivative Copyright and the 1909 Act— New Clarity or Confusion?, 44 Brook. L.Rev. 905, 919-920 (1978)).

However, the Court agrees with the Nimmer treatise that this sentence should not be converted into a binding holding dictating the outcome in cases involving preexisting works that would be protected only as unpublished works. See Nimmer § 4.12[B] at 4-66 to 4-67. The solitary sentence in Stewart relating to common law rights was not the product of an in-depth analysis of congressional intent. Instead, the sentence was strictly dictum based on a law review article. Furthermore, the law review article that the Court cited to support the sentence quoted above, Note, 44 Brooklyn L.Rev., at 919-920, goes on to posit that Congress’ true intent in creating section 7 was to comply with the Constitution’s mandate that copyright protection exist only for a limited duration. In order to provide for derivative work protection without running afoul of constitutional requirements, the authors of section 7:

had to prevent forfeiture of the subsisting copyright and also prevent the new derivative copyright from working to the underlying author’s advantage — and the public’s disadvantage — by effectively extending the duration of the underlying work’s copyright. Although section 24 set the time limit for any copyright at fifty-six years, an author conceivably could have circumvented this statutory limit by making “new versions” of his work, changing it only slightly, and then securing a copyright on each new version. The drafters of the 1909 Act considered overcoming the extension problem (ultimately met by the last provision of section 7) by actually terminating the derivative copyright on expiration of the underlying copyright.

Note, 44 Brooklyn L.Rev., at 920-921. With this goal in mind, it is obvious that Congress could not have intended section 7 to apply to common law copyrights because, prior to the changes worked by the 1976 Act, an author could have maintained an indefinite monopoly by publishing a derivative work but holding on to the underlying work without separately publishing it.

A holding that permitted the owner of an “unpublished” work incorporated into a derivative work to resurrect protection for the derivative work after the derivative work entered the public domain would make the use of public domain works perilous. This peril would result because the public domain work might have been created from an underlying work still in existence but never separately published. The person seeking to use the public domain.work likely would not know about and could not determine whether such a work existed. Any derivative work protected by a statutory copyright that expired due to the owner’s failure to renew the copyright, any derivative work copyrighted under the 1909 Act that expired naturally, or any derivative work copyrighted under the 1909 Act or the 1976 Aet that expired due to failure to comply with the requisite notice requirements could have been based on an unpublished preexisting work still in existence, which could then be used to reassert rights in the formerly public domain work.

The end result of permitting a party with a lapsed copyright to reestablish its monopoly over that work would be to inhibit the use of works by the public, a result clearly contrary to the intent of the Copyright Acts. “The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but ‘[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.’ ” Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340, 349, 111 S.Ct. 1282, 1290, 113 L.Ed.2d 358 (1991) (quoting U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 8). Resurrecting lost statutory copyrights would benefit only copyright owners. Resurrection would not advance the progress of science and useful arts because authors will not become more crea *1425 tive or more prolific simply because they know that they need not follow the Copyright Act in order to maintain copyright protection. Moreover, many of the works that would pose a problem already exist, and thus relaxing the statutory rules would provide no incentive, but instead would be merely a windfall to the former copyright owner.

Furthermore, it is not unfair to find that a party that utilized its rights in an underlying work to create a derivative work published the underlying work to the extent that the party incorporated that work into its derivative work. The Second Circuit has noted in dicta that “once the scriptwriter obtains the economic benefit of the recording and the broadcast, he has obtained all that his common law copyright was intended to secure for him; thus, it would not be unfair to find that publication of the derivative work divested the [underlying] script of its common law protection.” Gilliam v. American Broadcasting Cos., Inc., 538 F.2d 14, 20 (2d Cir. 1976); see also La Cienega Music Co. v. ZZ Top, 53 F.3d 950, 953 (9th Cir.1994) (noting that “ ‘an author in permitting records of his work to be publicly marketed is certainly engaging in a form of exploitation of his work and should therefore be required to seek protection, if at all, only under the limited monopoly concept of the federal Copyright Act’ ”) (quoting Nimmer (1992) § 4.05[B] at 4r-26). This principle is particularly compelling here, where the same entity claiming the common law rights owned the statutory copyright in the published derivative work.

Here, Batjac published McClintock! in 1963 with copyright notice. By publishing the film with notice, Batjac secured statutory copyright for all parts of the work not separately copyrighted. This protection extended to all copyrightable components of the work including the screenplays. When Batjac failed to renew the motion picture copyright in 1991, all portions of the work covered by the motion picture copyright entered the public domain. Therefore, the Register properly refused to register the screenplays for copyright.

c) Plaintiffs were not entitled to separately register the screenplays for statutory copyright after the motion picture was published.

Plaintiffs also contend that even if the screenplays were published with the motion picture, they remain in statutory copyright because section 7 prevents the screenplays from entering the public domain based solely on the fact that the McClintock! motion picture copyright entered the public domain. Plaintiffs admit that they would have had to renew the screenplay rights in 1991, but they contend that they were prevented from separately renewing the works by the Copyright Office’s practice of not registering the constituent elements of motion pictures for separate copyright where the owner of the motion picture also owned the incorporated material and the film was exhibited without a separate copyright notice for the incorporated material.

However, as discussed above, publication-of the film with copyright notice in Batjac’s name secured statutory copyright for the entire picture. Therefore, Batjac had nothing to renew separately from the motion picture. Furthermore, the fact that Batjac did not renew the motion picture copyright casts, serious doubt on its contention that it did not attempt to renew copyrights in the screenplays because of a practice of the Copyright Office. Moreover, under Stewart, the right to seek a renewal term would lie with the author’s heirs, not with Plaintiffs, because Grant, the author of the screenplays, died in 1966, which was prior to the expiration of the initial copyright term. 6

*1426 C. UAV Infringed Plaintiffs’ Copyright in the 1993 McClintock!.

In order to establish copyright infringement, a plaintiff must establish (1) ownership of a valid copyright and (2) copying of original elements of the work. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 361, 111 S.Ct. at 1295-96.

1. Plaintiffs own a valid copyright for the 1993 McClintock!.

There is no dispute that if the 1993 copyright is valid, Plaintiffs own it. UAV, however, asserts that the copyright is not valid because the 1993 McClintock! lacks sufficient originality to qualify for copyright protection. UAV asserts that Batjac’s changes — “panning and scanning” the public domain McClintock! and enhancing the film’s soundtrack — are merely mechanical rather than creative alterations to the underlying work. The Court finds that the 1993 copyright is valid and encompasses both of Batjae’s additions.

A certificate of copyright registration “shall constitute prima facie evidence of the validity of the copyright and the facts stat