Can Copyright Confer A Monopoly On The Pope’s Murder?
Crane v. Poetic Products Ltd., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 993 (SDNY January 8, 2009)
Arising from a fondness for the conspiracy theory that the 1978 death of Pope John Paul I was a murder most vile to facilitate a specific succession, both plaintiff and defendant to this action wrote works. Crane wrote a two act play entitled “The Last Confession” and filed a declaratory judgement for a ruling that that play does not infringed copyright claimant, Poetic’s, nonfiction book entitled, “In God’s Name”.
In reviewing the two works, the Southern District of New York held that the play is not substantially similar to the book. The court looked at the elements of both works and found that while the selection, arrangement and organization of the facts constitute protectable copyright in both works, the comparison between the two works revealed that the resulting thin copyright did not extent to the specific historical order of presentation that each used in expressing their thinly protectable copyright. No substantial similarity was found between the two that used different means and devices in expressing the same plot. Crane’s work utilized dialogue and a series of flashbacks while the Poetic work employed historical narrative in chronological order.
The court in granting defendant’s motion for summary judgement, the court instructed the clerk to ‘close the case’.