IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT NEWS: Ownership of Pulp Fiction screenplay is put to the test in California, (Jun 24, 2022)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

A federal court will have to decide whether Quentin Tarantino or studio Miramax owns the right to mint NFTs based on the script.

The federal district court in Los Angeles should dismiss a lawsuit by Miramax against Quentin Tarantino over his sale of NFTs based on the screenplay for Pulp Fiction, the famed director and screenwriter has urged in a new legal filing. The motion to dismiss, which unites a titan of the film industry with one of the most influential lawyers in the field of copyright, contends that the studio does not own any rights to the screenplay in the first place—and even if it did, a carveout for print publications covers the NFT sale in any event (Miramax, LLC v. Tarantino, June 21, 2022).

The lawsuit involves Pulp Fiction, the 1994 film that is widely considered to be one of the most influential movies of a generation. (“Pulp Fiction changed everything,” one commentator pithily asserts.) Twenty-seven years after the film’s release, in November 2021, Tarantino announced his intention to auction off excerpts from his original handwritten screenplay as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Each NFT consists of a single iconic scene, including personalized audio commentary from Tarantino. Owners of the NFTs, the company marketing the NFTs contends “will get a hold of secrets from the mind and creative process of Quentin Tarantino” which they may keep, share with trusted loved ones, or share with the entire world as they see fit.

The film’s producer, Miramax, LLC, filed suit shortly after the announcement, claiming that it, rather than Tarantino, owns the rights to all versions of the screenplay. The basis of Miramax’s claim was that Tarantino assigned his rights in Pulp Fiction screenplay in 1993. Miramax asserted claims for breach of contract, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition under the Lanham Act.

The motion to dismiss—which among others carries the signature of David Nimmer, the current author of the Nimmer on Copyright treatise—rests on two different grounds. First, the motion contends, Tarantino assigned to Miramax not the rights to screenplay, but only his rights in the movie itself. To the extent that Miramax contended that the screenplay could be treated as a derivative of the movie, the motion asserts, that is a “legal impossibility”—movies are derivatives of screenplays and not the other way around. That leaves Tarantino, the motion argues, with ownership of a wide array of expression contained within the screenplay. “While the copyright in the Screenplay would not give Mr. Tarantino the exclusive right to every story that involves L.A. gangsters and an attempt to fix a boxing match (and the mayhem that ensues),” the motion asserts, “it does protect the Screenplay itself, as well as the specific expression of the story and characters embodied in his particular script.”

Moreover, the motion posits, even if Tarantino did assign the screenplay to Miramax, the purported assignment contains a carveout expressly reserving to the director the rights to “print publication (including without limitation screenplay publication, ‘making of’ books … in audio and electronic formats as well, as applicable television sequel and remake rights and television and spinoff rights.” Distribution of digital copies of the screenplay by way of NFTs, the director contends, “constitutes a publication in an electronic format” and therefore falls within the reservation of rights.

Finally, the motion asserts, because the contract and trademark claims rise or fall with the copyright claim, they should be dismissed as well.

The Case is No 2:21-cv-08979-FMO-JC.

Attorneys: Bart H. Williams (Proskauer Rose LLP) for Miramax, LLC. Bryan J. Freedman (Freedman & Taitelman LLP) for Quentin Tarantino.

Companies: Miramax, LLC

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