Richlin

I. BACKGROUND

The material facts are largely undisputed. In April 1962, Maurice Richlin and Blake Edwards coauthored a fourteen- page Treatment initially entitled The Pink Rajah, but later renamed The Pink Panther. The Treatment served as the basis

of his common law copyright rights and injected the work into the public domain free for anyone to use. Publication in accordance with the statu- tory formalities of the 1909 Act, 17 U.S.C. § 10 (1909), however, both divested the owner of his common law copyright and invested him with federal statutory copyright protection. The rationale for this doctrine is rooted in the United States Constitution, which provides that “[t]he Con- gress shall have power . . . . [t]o promote the progress of science and use- ful arts, by securing, for limited times to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 8. In exchange for securing the exclusive right to exploit his work that federal copyright accords, the author agrees that he will enjoy this monopoly for the limited duration Congress granted in the Copyright Acts, so that the public is the ultimate beneficiary. See…