film rights

Since Charlotte asked in class, I thought I’d point to some textbook case law on film rights. One of the more prominent relevant cases we covered in Copyright Law was Aalmuhammed v Lee, which involves authorship rights in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. Jefri Aalmuhammed acted as a consultant on all things Muslim for the film, and in the course of his job made a number of suggestions that were adopted in the script. After the film was released, he sued for a co-writer credit. The court ruled that Aalmuhammed did not fit the legal definition of an author because he did not exercise any final control over any aspect of the film, but only made suggestions that Lee then acted on. In other words, an author must have agency in order to be considered an author. This is important when it comes to deciding film rights, because otherwise anyone who influenced the final film product (cinematographers, gaffers, sound guys, etc.) would be eligible for authorship. (Which might not be necessarily bad, but would certainly confuse things.)