Yeah, it's telling that the UK courts have repeatedly cast doubts on the bulk of AA's claims, and that they simply have been denying damages to LFL due to them not feeling the work classifies as something under the protection of UK law.
It's one of those cases where they won on the facts but lost on the law. AA's version of events was dismissed, which scuppered any claim he had to the copyright. Even if he had won on the facts, the rights would probably have been assigned to LFL anyway.
The point of law the case was decided upon was a fine one. It wouldn't surprise me if the Court of Appeal overturned the decision, and as such AA's reliance on the High Court's decision is risky. The appeal should clarify matters somewhat, but the appeal can be appealed. A case about a few pieces of vacuum formed plastic has unwittingly become a test case, which may well go to the highest court in the land.
Any damages the court awards will fall far short of the £10 million awarded by the US courts. Under English law they only have the power to compensate for the actual damage suffered. The most he can be ordered to pay is the amount of profit he obtained from the sales of the infringing articles.
If the US judgment is enforced it will only be for the portion of sales in the US, and will again only reflect the value of actual sales there.
I'd love to take the judge back in time to 1976 and see if he has the gumption to tell Liz Moore, her smock smeared and her thumbs buried in clay, that she isn't "sculpting".
It is one of the peculiarities of copyright law that each work which is derivative of another, even if it is based wholly on it obtains its own copyright. This is separate from that of the previous work, and separately actionable. Of course there may well be a chain of ownership where the owner of the first work can claim ownership of the derivative works that follow. It is also possible for a non copyrightable work to derive from a copyrightable one, which is on the current judgment what happened here.
The clay sculpture, probably (but not necessarily) was copyrightable and there are authorities which if right would possibly make the moulds used to pull the helmets copyrightable too. The case as argued was (as far as I can tell) based on the copyright status of the helmets themselves, and all reference to prior works was to establish the chain of ownership of any rights in the helmets, which would vest with LFL.
On their own merits the helmets were deemed to not be protected due to their nature as props; themselves being a component part of a greater artistic work, not a work of art in their own right. Whether this is right is now for the appeal courts to decide.
Even if the decision was correct it doesn't follow that the contributions of the artists who made the actual forms from which the moulds were derived were any less important. Without them AA would not have been able to fabricate them and the film would have been the poorer for it. Even AA deserves some credit in this respect.
What he doesn't deserve is the credit he claimed, and thankfully the court agreed. It is unfortunate that the credit was likely given to the wrong person, but for the purposes of the case it is largely irrelevant. All that is important is it wasn't AA. To those of us who do care enough about who made what to investigate the matter, the truth is available from other sources (here being not the least of them.)
