Granite Music Corporation v. United Artists Corporation

This appeal involves a copyright infringement action. The trial court found that plaintiff, owner of a copyright song entitled “Tiny Bubbles” (hereafter “Bubbles”), failed to show an infringement by the defendants in their composition entitled “Hiding the Wine” (hereafter “Hiding”) in the motion picture entitled The Secret of Santa Vittoria.

The issues on appeal are: (1) the admission of musical similarities, (2) instructions to the jury with respect to the defendants’ burden of proof, (3) comments made by the court to the jury, and (4) whether the defendants had to prove that a composition relied upon was not an infringement. We affirm.

Leon Pober composed “Bubbles” in May 1966 and assigned his rights of title and interest to the composition, including the copyright thereon and the right to copyright same, to plaintiff’s predecessor in interest, Criterion Music Company. More than 30 records of the song were released.

In April 1969, defendant Ernest Gold was employed to compose the score for the motion picture entitled The Secret of Santa Vittoria. Gold had previously composed about 75 scores, including the score to Exodus. To prepare for writing the score to the…