Julie Taymor: Famed Director Sues as an Author
No director has ever prevailed at trial on a copyright claim, but Julie Taymor’s is probably the strongest yet brought. When the producers of Broadway’s “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” set out to make the most elaborate and expensive musical in history, Taymor was among the most striking additions to the spectacle. For almost fifteen years, her iconic version of Disney’s “The Lion King” has played to packed houses on Broadway,spreading her acclaim around the globe. Taymor is perhaps the only Broadway director to havesuch widespread recognition. Unfortunately, her high regard was not enoughto compensate for anunwieldy production that was plagued withproblems from the start. Not least amongst them were the purported “artistic differences” Taymor had with the producers. Earlier this year, the legendary director left the production on bad terms. Now, Taymor is suing over the modified version of “Spider-Man” that has been playing under new direction. She argues that, although she was removed from “Spider-Man,” many of her original contributions to the script and the staging were not.
Directors have rarely sued for copyright infringement on the basis of their contributions and it’s unclear whether directors can claim any such rights. Although directors manifest considerable skill and judgment in deciding how a particular cast, stage, and set are best applied to a script, the law and tradition of copyright demand more than a would-be author’s effort and innovation.Before what is essentially a monopoly on the expression of an idea will be granted, there must be some “fixation” of the creator’s work that represents something discrete to which protection will be limited, some lasting contribution that will be left to the public’s use once that monopoly expires, and simply some proof that the originator produced the work first. Directors’ work, which often amounts to little more than extemporaneous instruction or the coordination of others’ creative endeavors, has rarelyleft anything as tangible as a descriptive series of pictures or written set of instructions.
Nevertheless, there is nothing so far that precludes a copyright on directorial work. In 1996 a District Court in Florida ruling on a motion for summary judgment in Mantello v. Hallentertained the possibility that a director’s contribution to a play could be copyrightable, although the case promptly settled before the import of that statement could be explored. A decade later, inEinhorn v. Mergatroyd Productions, a director took that decision a step further and succeeded in registering a copyright on his “blocking script” ofstage directions, describing them in part as “choreography,” which is explicitly protected under the current Copyright Act. Again the court declined to rule against the director without first determining the scope of the copyright conferred by that registration, but settlement precluded further inquiry. Taymor’s claim might appear to be in the vein of these cases, but it departs insofar as Taymor’s role extends far beyond that of a director.
Taymor did more than just direct the original production of “Spider-Man;” She was involved almost from the musical’s inception. She wrote the original “treatment,” which described the underlying themes, overall storyline, and many proposed scenes for the ultimate work. She also took over as one of three “bookwriters” more than five years before “Spider-Man” premiered. In this capacity, Taymor contributed to the written document that describes the essential elements of the musical. She alleges that she negotiated for rights to approve changes to the book thereafter. She holds registered copyrights in both the original treatment and the original draft of the musical’s book. Ultimately, Taymor was as much a co-author of the work as a director.
Taymor avoids the issues that dog most directors seeking copyright protection. Her work was fixed in the original book and treatment. She has all of the rights of a co-author. Viewed in that light, this case becomes much more mundane. She wrote the book and the producers subsequently, without her permission, used a new version which copied at least a quarter of the original verbatim, not to mention far more elements that were only modified slightly. Scrutiny will center on whether the various “deal memoranda” that the complaint cites amount to a genuine agreement between Taymor and the various producers of “Spider-Man.” Depending on how that is ultimately interpreted, questions will also arise as to whether Taymor’s contribution is a work-for-hire to which she has no rights. Ultimately, depending on the extent of her contribtution, an analysis will have to be made regarding whether the similarity between her creations and the current staging is sufficiently “substantial similar” to justify a finding of copyright infringement.
That’s not the end of the story, though; the larger community of directors seems interested in this case. The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society,as part of its mission to protect its members’ rights, has participated in every major directorial copyright action since the first notable such action brought in 1994. This group has also been an active participant in Taymor’s dispute with “Spider-Man’s” producers, representing her interest in the protracted arbitration proceedings to claim the royalties owed to Taymor for her work before her termination and the musical’s rewrite. This further action might, in part, be an effort to establish a more decisive precedent upholding director’s rights in their work.
It’s doubtful, however, that this suit bears anything but a superficial relationship to the interests of directors in general. Taymor is simply exceptional. She had the opportunity to command a controlling role in the writing, pre-production, and actual production of “Spider-Man” only because of her notoriety. Other directors, even notable ones, do not normally enjoy such a powerful bargaining position. It seems unlikely that the issues with which directors are most concerned will receive substantial treatment in any resulting decision, so long as there are other, better established grounds on which this case can be decided.
MF Global – John S. Corzine.
John S. Corzine is a remedial student of the lessons learned in the last financial crisis. The head of MF Global had been sheltered from the worst of the nation’s economic woes in office, while he served first as a US Senator and then as a Governor of New Jersey. Now, all at once, the worst of Lehman’s fall has been revisited upon him.
Corzine took the reins of MF Global this year in an aggressive return to Wall Street. Trying to replicate his success at Goldman Sachs, it is reported that Corzine engaged in a characteristically risky pattern of investment, including reinvestment of MF Global’s own profits in order to bolster returns. In September, finding that MF Global was over-leveraged in European sovereign debt, analysts downgraded its stock. Regulators demanded that MF Global raise cash to cover its investments and trading partners began demanding more up-front. Apparently, pushed beyond the brink, MF Global tried to sell out over the past weekend, but the deal fell through. In a final desperate move, MF Global filed for bankruptcy on Monday. As the dust settles, investors, traders, analysts, regulators, and federal investigators are all trying to make sense of what went on behind closed doors in MF Global’s last days.
First on many people’s minds are the anywhere from $600 to 900 million still unaccounted for. Some attribute this shortfall to MF Global’s use of customer cash to back its own trades in a last ditch effort at self-preservation. So far, this is speculation. According to the press, what has been confirmed is that the customers’ accounts were not segregated from MF Global’s own. That alone is a severe violation of industry regulations and undermined MF Global’s attempts at a buyout. MF Global’s attorneys told the bankruptcy court on Tuesday that “to the best knowledge of management, there is no shortfall.” Some speculate that the missing funds are being withheld by interested parties or are merely the result of accounting errors. Nevertheless, fears persist, perhaps justifiably, that the worst has yet to come to light.
Investigations have been undertaken in every affected sector at every level. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has taken extraordinary measures, initially locking MF Global’s traders off the floor and transferring MF Global’s accounts to other brokers. The Security Investor Protection Corporation has appointed a trustee to ensure that investors’ interests are protected in the course of bankruptcy proceedings and the CFTC has issued subpoenas to MF Global requesting certain documents and information. The Intercontinental Exchange and the Department of the Treasury have declared that, after conducting their own investigations, they remain unaffected. Neither FINRA nor the SEC have publicly taken a stance on the issue, but both are undoubtedly conducting their own investigations. Finally, the FBI has reportedly begun looking into the matter and criminal charges seem likely.
The Gupta Indictment: Government Cocky After Rajaratnam Conviction?
United States attorney Preet Barbara has a challenge before him if he wants to prove that Rajat Gupta was the “eyes and ears of in the boardroom for his friend and business associate, Raj Rajaratnam.” The government alleges that Mr. Gupta, who was once a director of Goldman Sachs and Proctor & Gamble, fed information to Mr. Rajaratnam, who was recently convicted of insider trading. The indictment filed last week details six seemingly incriminating exchanges between Gupta and Rajaratnam, but they don’t amount to much. To convict Mr. Gupta of insider trading, the government must show that confidential information was exchanged which resulted in illicit trades. Mr. Gupta was once recorded disclosing details about a possible Goldman Sachs purchase to Mr. Rajaratnam, but Mr. Rajaratnam didn’t trade on it. On another occasion, Mr. Rajaratnam said that he had been tipped off on a trade by a Proctor & Gamble board member, but didn’t say who had provided the information. Aside from these two instances, the government only has telephone records: Mr. Gupta called Mr. Rajaratnam after speaking to the Goldman Sachs’ board and Mr. Rajaratnam later had his hedge fund, Galleon, trade Goldman stock. Of the six charges of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud that Mr. Gupta faces, all are based on stock purchases soon after two of these telephone records. This entire case will turn on whether the government can prove what Gupta said in those telephone calls from when and to whom he said it.
The jury will have to decide whether Mr. Gupta was betraying his colleagues’ confidence when he called Mr. Rajaratnam. In his favor, Mr. Gupta was friends and business partners with Mr. Rajaratnam and they presumably had much to talk about aside from Goldman Sachs. Nevertheless, Mr. Gupta placed one call just sixteen seconds after a conference call with the Goldman Sachs board. The jury will be asked to weigh Mr. Gupta’s reputation as a self-made man, esteemed member of the financial community, and notable philanthropist against Mr. Rajaratman’s recent conviction of insider trading in a huge and highly publicized trial. Growing sentiment against the financial sector and the Wall Street elite will not help in that evaluation. However, Mr. Gupta’s attorney, Gary Naftalis, fought the SEC’s initial proceedings against Mr. Gupta in March in part because he wanted a jury trial. Presumably, he has some confidence that he can sway the jurors.
Why would someone like Mr. Gupta, who earned so much wealth and good will after years of hard work, get himself involved in all of this? What could he have hoped to gain that he didn’t already have? Questions like these will be at the forefront of the jurors’ minds. The optimist might say that Mr. Gupta had no reason or motivation to cheat, but the cynic will contend that, in a culture of greed and deceit, he could not have succeeded any other way.
Conrad Murray Trial: What is there to try?
Unlike most criminal trials, there are very few issues remaining in the homicide trial of Conrad Murray, the late pop superstar Michael Jackson’s physician, scheduled to commence on September 27, 2011 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Dr. Murray is being charged criminally for Involuntary Manslaughter for the death of Michael Jackson. Under California law, the prosecutors must prove that Dr. Murray committed an “unlawful act” (but not a felony) or a lawful act with a “risk of great bodily harm committed carelessly.” The prosecutors allege that Dr. Murray sedated Jackson with the highly risky drug propofol to help Jackson fall asleep even though propofol is administered intravenously to sedate surgical patients in an extremely controlled environment. They further assert that it is careless to administer the drug without very close supervision, which can result in the risk of “great bodily harm.”
While in most criminal cases there are several issues to be tried, the defense has already conceded some very material issues. First, it appears that the defense team will concede that the administration of propofol was the cause of Jackson’s death. The defense is further conceding that Dr. Murray was the physician who prescribed the propofol to Jackson. Third, the defense is conceding, as it must, that Murray had administered propofol to Jackson on prior occasions to help Jackson fall asleep. The main issue in contention, according to the defense, is who administered the propofol to Jackson (which caused his death) and how that propofol was administered. Specifically, the defense is preparing to assert that, for some unknown reason, on the final day of his life, Jackson decided to intravenously self-administer propofol. Through the use of fact witnesses and medical experts, they will try to create “reasonable doubt” by asserting that Jackson, in so doing, administered a fatal overdose to himself. How that will be proven is the big question in this criminal trial.
If the defense is able to raise that reasonable question, then the single issue to be deliberated by the jury will be whether Dr. Murray can be convicted for the crime, using the “careless” standard, if all he did was provide the drug to Jackson. Even though the case has yet to begin, in light of the status of Jackson and the dynamics of this single issue, the trial may very well turn out to be an even larger courtroom drama than the recent trial of should I post Casey Anthony. Stay tuned, or should I say, “buckle your seatbelt.” This should be an interesting and entertaining ride.
What Was The Doctor Thinking?
The homicide trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, accused of killing Michael Jackson, continued on September 29, 2011, with riveting testimony or Mr. Alvarez, the Logistics Director of Michael Jackson. According to Mr. Alvarez, Dr. Murray appeared more concerned with covering up what he had been treating Mr. Jackson with at the time that Mr. Jackson became critical, then he was calling for emergency help. While the defense attempted to cross examine Mr. Alvarez, that cross examination was ineffective. The jury is thus forced to ask itself, “why would a treating physician, who sees his sole patient in serious distress, be more concerned with hiding evidence than he would be with assisting Mr. Jackson.” Perhaps Dr. Murray will have to take the stand to answer this pivotal question.
