Copyright Grantees Served Sour Grapes in Steinbeck Dispute

This summer, the Southern District of New York gave broad effect to that language. In Steinbeck v. McIntosh & Otis, Inc., 433 F. Supp. 2d 395 (S.D.N.Y. 2006), the court held that a post-1978 contract canceling a pre-1978 grant and then re-granting the exact same copyright interests previously conveyed does not extinguish the statutory termination right. Any other construction, the court found, would render the post-1978 agreement an impermissible 'agreement to the contrary.' While it is consonant with decisions of the Second Circuit, the district court's holding is in tension with, and likely contrary to, recent decisions arising out of the Ninth Circuit. Whether this apparent conflict among the circuits will soften or sharpen awaits further judicial development and, perhaps, resolution by the U.S. Supreme Court.

At issue in Steinbeck were the works of Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. These included both his 'early works,' whose renewal term became due in the course of his lifetime and for which he filed renewal registrations, and his 'later works,' which entered their renewal terms only after his death in 1968. The former include The Red Pony ('1937), Of Mice and Men ('1937), The Long Valley ('1938), and The Grapes of Wrath ('1939), while the latter include Cannery Row ('1945) and The Wayward Bus ('1947).