Ninth circuit revives Four Seasons copyright dispute
A US appeals court has revived a copyright dispute concerning whether the widow of a man who wrote a biography of a member of pop group the Four Seasons should be entitled to profits earned from a musical about the band.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was considering a previous district court's decision that found Thomas DeVito, a founding member of the Four Seasons, did not owe Donna Corbello profits from the Jersey Boys stage show.
But, in its ruling on Tuesday (February 10), the appeals court said the district court erred in its decision and that Corbello should be entitled to profits.
The Four Seasons achieved success mainly in the 1960s. Corbello is the widow of Rex Woodward, who wrote an unpublished manuscript detailing DeVito’s life.
In 1999, DeVito, along with the other members of the band, Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio and Nicholas Macioci, signed an agreement that gave the producers of Jersey Boys the permission to use their likeness, names and life events to develop the show.
The show has been running since 2005.
But, in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed at the US District Court for the District of Nevada in 2011, Corbello claimed the musical was partly based on her late husband’s work and that, as a co-right holder to the work, she should be due some of the profits.
The dispute can be traced to 1988, when DeVito agreed that Woodward could write his biography, which covered events that occurred while he was a member of the Four Seasons.
DeVito helped to found the band in 1960 but left by 1970. He did, however, return for one show with the band in 2005.
Shortly before Woodward died, in 1991, DeVito registered the unpublished work with the US Copyright Office and placed himself as the sole right holder.
But in 2006, Corbello also submitted the unpublished biography to the office and requested that her name be included in the copyright claim alongside DeVito’s. The office later complied with her request.
Corbello subsequently filed a lawsuit against DeVito, the rest of the Four Seasons members, and the producers of Jersey Boys, stating that DeVito had not shared proceeds from the show with her.
In its judgment, released in 2011, the Nevada district court ruled that Corbello was not due any profits from the show because the use of the word ‘biography’ in the 1999 agreement with the Jersey Boys producers was “ambiguous”, and did not specifically cover the unpublished work by Woodward.
But the Ninth Circuit disagreed, stating that “in the context of the 1999 agreement, the term ‘biography’ is not ambiguous”.
“Such a play constitutes a ‘derivative work’, the right to create which resides in each copyright holder of the underlying work and may be transferred to a third party. In granting this exclusive licence, the 1999 agreement constitutes a transfer of ownership,” the court added.
The case will now be returned to the district court.
