Copyright Case

This case had to deal with the movie Batman Forever. In the movie a sculpture appeared as a back drop as much as eight times in the movie. Warner Bros. stated, “Since the film crew had permission from the building owner to film at the site, they had a right to include in the shots the sculpture which was located on the grounds.” However the artist did not transfer his copyright to the building owner. The building owner didn’t have the authority to let the Warner Bros. use the sculpture in shots of the movie. They needed to get permission from the copyright holder. The Warner Bros. did not get a license to use the sculpture. In result, the artist filed a multi-million dollar against Warner Bros. for copyright infringement. The Artist of the sculpture is Andrew Leicester and his sculpture cost 2.5 million. The trial came down to two points, one being the copyright infringement for using his sculpture in their production, and two the copyright infringement for filming and taking photographs of the sculpture. It turns out that as part of the contract for the commission of the sculpture, Leicester gave the building owner the exclusive right to make 3-D copies of the sculpture.
Regarding to the first issue, the court decided that the Warner Bros. were not guilty of copyright infringement because the artist gave the building owner a particular copyright making him the holder of the copyright. Regarding the second issue the court decided that the sculpture towers were actually apart of the building so taking pictures of them weren’t considered fringing. So as a whole, the Warner Bros. were not accountable for copyright. Leicester’s sculpture was set apart so it would not be apart as the architectural design of the building. http://www.benedict.com/Visual/Batman/Batman.aspx