<b>Decision of Note</b> Film Owner Can't Claim Copyright Protection for Actor's Multiple Roles

To determine whether a defendant's work is substantially similar to a plaintiff's work in a copyright infringement case, courts generally first discard any unprotectable elements from the plaintiff's work. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York recently ruled that the use of one actor to play multiple roles in the plaintiff's 1949 comedy film Kind Hearts and Coronets wasn't a protectable element for proving infringement by the authors of a stage musical adapted from the film. Canal+Image UK Ltd. v. Lutvak, 10 Civ. 1536. The movie was drawn from the novel Israel Rank, which is now in the public domain. In 2003, film owner Canal+ granted Steven Lutvak and Robert L. Freedman “the exclusive authorization, to the extent of the interests of [Canal+] ' to adapt the Film ' as a live stage musical presentation.” Lutvak and Freedman then developed A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. But Canal+ exercised its right to terminate the adaptation agreement by deciding not to proceed with the musical. When the authors nevertheless continued with the production, Canal+ filed suit, alleging that Lutvak and Freedman “have retained the style and occurrence of humorous, non-realistic deaths from the Film, deaths which are very different from the horrifyingly realistic ways in which the victims die in Israel Rank.” The complaint also alleged that “defendants' retitled musical has retained the central and most memorable expressive part of Kind Hearts and Coronets: the comedy inherent in having all eight of the aristocratic murder victims played by a single actor [i.e., Alec Guinness in the movie].”