T.B. Harms Co. v. Eliscu – Case Brief
T.B. Harms Co. v. Eliscu, 339 F.2d 823 (2d Cir. 1964)
Facts: Dreyfus sought to obtain licenses to Eliscu’s (D) lyrics to a number of songs which had been composed for a motion picture. Harms (P) alleged that Eliscu had assigned his rights to certain songs to Dreyfus and that Harms was the successor in interest. Eliscu insisted that he had never signed the agreement and claims that the copyrights were properly renewed and had been assigned to Jungnickel thirty years after the alleged assignment to Dreyfus. Harms brought an action in federal district court to determine the ownership rights to the copyright under 28 USC 1338. D’s motion to dismiss the action in federal court was granted; title to the copyright was a matter of state rather than federal law and the federal court therefore had no subject matter jurisdiction. P appealed.
Issue: Do federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over all matters affecting copyrights?
Holding and Rule: No. Federal courts do not have exclusive jurisdiction over all matters affecting copyrights.
Copyrights are subject to federal law if the allegation involves copyright infringement. Matters that involve ownership or title to a copyright are subject to the law of the state in which the controversy arose. The court held that in this case, the copyright claim related to a dispute over its ownership. The Copyright Act did not create any explicit cause of action over matters related to title. The court held that this case merely involved a dispute over ownership to the copyright and not any act or threat of copyright infringement which must be dealt with under the Copyright Act, and that there was no subject matter jurisdiction.
Disposition: Affirmed.
Notes: Subject matter jurisdiction does not exist absent some statutory basis.