Sony wins lawsuit over ‘Midnight in Paris’ quote

Sometimes, businesses that make use of works of art find themselves in intellectual property disputes. They require the services of a Phoenix business attorney.

Recently, a U.S. District Court judge sided with Sony Pictures Classics in a copyright infringement case revolving around the movie "Midnight in Paris," directed by Woody Allen.

In the case, Faulkner Literary Rights, which handles the estate of the author William Faulkner, accused Sony of misusing a quote from Faulkner's 1950 novel "Requiem for a Nun." 

In the film, the character Gil Pender, a screenwriter played by Owen Wilson, travels with his fiancée to Paris and ends up going back in time to the 1920's. There, he meets a number of famous authors from the era, including Faulkner.

Later, Pender tells his fiancée: "The past is not dead. Actually, it's not even past. You know who said that? Faulkner, and he was right. And I met him too. I ran into him at a dinner party."

The quote in the movie is a slight modification of the original line in "Requiem for a Nun," which reads: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

According to an article in the Intellectual Property Brief, Faulkner Literary Rights believed that Sony should have gotten permission for the quote the way it got permission for other works in the movie, such as Picasso's art and a Cole Porter song.

However, the judge decided that the movie quote was protected by fair use.

"At issue in this case is whether a single line from a full-length novel singly paraphrased and attributed to the original author in a full-length Hollywood film can be considered a copyright infringement," Judge Michael P. Mills wrote. "In this case, it cannot."

Categorised in: Intellectual Property Law

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