The Martha Graham School and Dance Foundation, Inc. v Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance., Inc., 224 F. Supp. 2d 567 (S.D.N.Y. 2002) (Graham II” or the “copyright trial”)

Name
Instructor
Task
Date
Martha Graham School v. Martha Graham Center
Introduction
Martha Graham School and Dance Foundation, Inc. v. Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc., 224 F. Supp. 2d 567 (S.D.N.Y. 2002) was a case on copyright ownership. To understand the nature of the case, it is prudent to provide a brief introduction of the parties involved. Martha Graham was a household name, best known for her inventive dances and choreography. Her modern dance was meant to serve as a substitute to the classical ballet. Graham formed a dance company that consisted of some female dancers in the late 1920s aimed towards imparting her vision to others (Braveman 480). Even so, running the company proved challenging because of financial problems. To absolve herself from legal and funding challenges, and for eligibility of tax benefits, Graham started relying on non-profit corporations to cover the financial challenges her venture was encountering. As such, it is important to give a detailed analysis of the case.
Description of each Party
The 1948 saw the incorporation of the Center following Graham’s over reliance on nonprofits. It did not last long when in 1956, the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, also referred as the School, was incorporated (Kim 349). The Center, as well as the School carried out their business as one entity to the extent of sharing a board of directors and bank accounts (Braveman 481). The Center in collaboration with nonprofit organizations promoted and disseminated Graham’s work.

In the 1960s, Graham and a photographer named Ronald Protas developed a close relationship, and following her death, she left the interests and rights of her musical scores and dance works to Protas (Kim 350).
Protas established the Martha Graham Trust, also referred to as the Trust, in 1998, and later founded the Martha School and Dance Foundation (S&D), a not-for-profit organization (Braveman 482). However, in 2000, dissonance arose between Protas and the Center’s board of directors. In the year that followed, both parties separately obtained registration certificates of copyright for Graham’s thirty dances. However, the Center was embroiled in a lawsuit filed by Protas who sought the court’s authority to file an injunction aimed towards preventing the School and Center from teaching Graham’s style, using her trademark, and choreography. Protas also sought a judgment stipulating that the Trust was the sole owner of Graham’s jewelry and dances.
The Cause of Disagreement in the Case
Plaintiffs
The cause of disagreement in the case was the ownership of Graham’s seventy dances. According to Protas, the Center was in breach of the copyright ownership and trademark because it did not own Graham’s dances (Kim 351). However, the southern district court took up the issue separately. As regards to issues of trademark, the district court ruled that the agreement between the Center and the Trust that licensed the Center to use dances owned by the Trust could not be depended on as having taken place. Put differently, the plaintiff maintained that none of the dances were publicly exhibited and that the Trust was in the ownership of all dance rights. Further, they argued that the S&D Foundation was the authorized and current licensee of the stipulated rights. Therefore, the unauthorized use of the dances was tantamount to intentional copyright infringement. The Plaintiff also worked towards obtaining a judgment to declare Protas as the sole owner of the jewelry linked to the dances.
Defendants
The Defendants stood their ground, asserting ownership of the copyrights in dispute. According to them, the sets, dances, and costumes that were disagreed upon were owned by the Center because of either Graham’s assignments or the work-for-hire. Therefore, the Defendants disputed they were not part of Graham’s residuary estate. Further, they argued that Protas did not inherit the dances and costumes under dispute. The district court went through a thorough opinion following a bench trial that canvassed over the point of disagreements as regards the ownership of sets, jewelry, costumes, as well as dance copyrights.
The Court’s Decision
Southern District Court, New York
The District Court ruled in favor of the Defendants. At its conclusion, the Court ruled the 34 dances that were created by Graham during the time of her employment by the Center of School were works for hire. Further, the Court asserted that Graham allotted many of her dances to the Center that did not work for her (Braveman 484). The Court ruled that the licensee estoppel did not preclude the Center from obtaining relief. Even if the previous agreed on licensing agreement between the Center and the Trust was in force, a factor that the parties stipulated clearly was not the case, thus the agreement in question was licensed works that had not been presented as evidence or even proved to exist. This implied that the provision of the agreement intended to license dances from the Center and the Trust had not taken effect. The Court also found that a great number of the registration certificates obtained by both the plaintiffs and Defendants did not form prima facie copyright evidence of ownership because at times they were based on the incorrect grounds that the works were not published as well as being a premise of competing certificates.
Finally, the Court found that the declaration of ownership as regards the renewal term of copyright was entitled to Protas, especially regarding a single dance known as the Seraphic Dialogue. On the other hand, the Defendants were entitled to a copyright ownership declaration in 45 dances. Even so, 18 of the 45 dances belonged to the Center by way of assignment while the other 27 dances belonged to the Center since they were works for hire that were as a result of copyright proprietorship authored by the Center. Sixteen of the 27 dances were works for hire as stipulated in the 1909 Act while eleven of them were works for hire as specified in the 1976 Act (Kim 351). The Court further found that 10 dances were already accessible to the public and lacked timely renewal, the commissioning parties that were not in action owned five dances, and copyright ownership of nine dances had not been established (Connelly 861). The Court also found that the jewelry and sets for dances created by Graham were entitled to the Defendants and ordered the Plaintiffs to return all the items. Finally, a constructive trust was imposed by the Court on the proceeds that the Trust had received from the sale and license of intellectual property that Graham had created.
Court of Appeals Decision for the Second Circuit
The Plaintiff appealed the case at the Court of Appeal, maintaining that the decision by the lower court was incorrect as none of Graham’s dances qualified as work for hire. Even so, the Second Circuit upheld the majority of the decisions of the district court, implying that most of Graham’s work was work for hire, thus belonged to the Center (Kim 353). However, the Court of Appeal reversed some decisions of the district court, especially on the works that cut across the years 1956 to 1965, ruling that they were not working for hire because Graham worked as a part-time employee during this period (Connelly 862).
Impact of the Case on Copyright
The Graham case has serious implication to the copyright cases. For instance, it ignores the fact that many artists, especially in genres that are not highly motivated commercially rely on nonprofits to reach their targeted audience. Thus, the artists cannot cast a blind eye to the support offered by nonprofits. Another aspect is the win or loses doctrine of the work for hire that creates a dilemma for the judiciary in scenarios where the acknowledged employee has unmatched talents and abilities such as Martha Graham (Kim 373). The exclusive ownership concept under work for hire principle may undermine the realistic expectations of the involved parties. Therefore, there need to be some changes to the 1976 Copyright Act to put into consideration the parties’ intent, especially in an employment relationship. It is also important to note that nonprofits are not adequately organized for retention of ownership.
Many nonprofits operate on a temporary basis because of funding problems such as the one that plagued the Center and resulted in ending its operations. Further, the decision of the Second Circuit was a disservice to future audiences of the craft because it means that a defunct organization cannot maintain or exploit the works holistically the way the artist would have wanted. It is evident that there is a flawed relationship between nonprofits and artists as espoused by the Graham case. As such, there is a need to reward artists with the right to retain their copyright because they spend long periods to create a masterpiece to the extent of pushing themselves to the limit. This can be achieved through changing certain aspects of the Copyright Act.
Works Cited
Braveman, Anne. “Duet of Discord: Martha Graham and Her Non-Profit Battle Over Work for Hire.” Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review. 25.3 (2005): 471-498. Print.
Kim, Nancy S. “Martha Graham, Professor Miller and the “Work For Hire” Doctrine: Undoing the Judicial Bind Created by the Legislature.” Journal of Intellectual Property Law. 13.2 (2006): 337-374. Print.
Connelly, Sharon. “Authorship, Ownership, and Control: Balancing the Economic and Artistic Issues Raised by the Martha Graham Copyright Case.” Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal. 15.3 (2005): 837-891. Print.