Lake

Plaintiff herein wrote a story, entitled “Winchester, 73”, and sold the story to the defendants. lie entered into a written contract with defendants by which he assigned to them his rights in said story. The contract, in part, was contained in a letter written by Universal Pictures Company, Inc. to the plaintiff, which letter is as follows:

In his complaint plaintiff alleges defendants “caused to be published said story, ‘Winchester, 73,’ in the August, 1950 issue of ‘Movie Story,’ * * *” magazine; that plaintiff, in violation of his agreement with defendants, did not receive any credit or any mention whatsoever as the author of “Winchester, 73” and that defendants have failed to pay plaintiff any part of the “net proceeds” realized by them as the result of such publication.

Some time after defendants purchased the story, they engaged Robert L. Richards and Borden Chase to write a screen play based on the plaintiff’s original story. The motion picture, “Winchester ’73”, was made from the screen play as prepared by Robert L. Richards and Borden Chase.

Three main issues are raised by defendants :

(1) That the story as published in “Movie Story” magazine was not plaintiff’s…