Laparade

This appeal by the Authors’ Rights Restoration Corp. (“ARRC”) arises from a single trifurcated bench trial before the Hon. Williajn J. Rea. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we affirm.

The appeal involves a dispute over the rights to and funds from 34 Spanish language motion pictures. Competing claims to ownership of the worldwide intellectual property rights and related rights in the 34 pictures were litigated in a bench trial held in three phases (Eduardo Moreno Laparade v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., et al., Case No. CV 97-0615 WJR (Ctx)). The first phase concerned who was an “author” entitled to restoration rights under the Copyright Act. At the end of this phase, the district court determined that the producer of the film is the “author” under the laws of Mexico.

ARRC’s claim to the motion pictures flows from 17 U.S.C. § 104A(b). This section restores United States copyright protection to eligible foreign works that have fallen into the public domain in this country. Id. Copyright protection is restored to “the author or initial rightholder of the work as determined by the law of the source country of the work.” Id.

The parties present two competing…