The parties dispute the ownership of copyrights in 44 articles written by the film critic Stanley Kauffmann, which first appeared in The New Republic magazine and now have been republished in an anthology. The Estate appealed the district court’s dismissal of the complaint against RIT for copyright infringement based on RIT’s publication of the anthology. RIT asserted the defense that the Estate did not own the copyrights, arguing that the articles were works for hire and that the magazine was the author of the works with ownership of the copyrights.

The Second Circuit held that Kauffmann’s articles were not works for hire because the letter agreement (which stated that his articles were works for hire) was signed long after the works were created, and no special circumstances even arguably warrant applying the written agreement. Therefore, Kauffmann was and remains the author of the 44 articles and his Estate, as his successor, was the owner of the copyrights in them. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court’s judgment and remanded for further proceedings. View “The Estate of Stanley Kauffmann v. Rochester Institute of Technology” on Justia Law