‘Friday the 13th’ Screenwriter Wins an Important Copyright Lawsuit
Victor Miller once scared moviegoers with Friday the 13th. Four decades after penning that influential horror flick, which prompted numerous sequels, he’s scored an important legal victory that may frighten Hollywood producers. On Thursday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a win for him in a copyright termination battle. As a result, he’s set to reclaim the domestic rights to the franchise.
Miller attempted to leverage the part of copyright law that allows authors to reclaim the rights to what they once created after waiting a statutory set period of time. It’s not unlike what the heirs of comic book creators are now attempting to do against Disney, although there are important differences given the Marvel comic books at issue were published before copyright law was changed in the mid-1970s and Friday the 13th came afterward. But in alignment with Disney’s argument, Friday the 13th producer Sean Cunningham argued that Miller contributed his screenplay as a work made for hire and that it was ineligible for termination. In September 2018, a federal judge ruled it wasn’t a work made for hire.
