RE: Contract between a consumer and the owner of a movie theatre

Chris Mohr wrote:
>In the U.S. that is not the relationship in most cases. The exhibitor
>is generally a non-exclusive licensee of a copyrighted work who grants
>the moviegoer a license to enter its real property for the limited
>purpose of watching the film. The exhibitor has no ownership rights in
>the intellectual property.

I think Alan's question was directed to the nature of the relationship with the consumer. And I think understand the point of his thesis inquiry: when a consumer goes online to view copyrightable materials belonging to others, what is the nature of that r elationship and do any legal relationships arise? He is contrasting that with offline examples, where a legal relationship may or may not arise b/t consumer and copyright owner (or distributor), and is qualitatively different from the online experience.

Alan, my own thoughts are that your movie example is not a perfect analogy to the online experience of consumers. A movie ticket is at best an access contract. It permits the consumer to view a performance at the time and location provided by the distribu tor. The consumer never practices any of the intellectual property rights of the owner, but is merely a passive observer. (How I wish that were really true; at the last movie I saw, the couple in front of me were too interactive!).

In contrast, an online consumer does practice certain intellectual property rights (or causes them to be practiced). Reproduction occurs in at least two instances, including loading of the HTML code and media in both the cache stored on the hard drive and  in the computer's RAM. So at the very least, an implied license arises between the consumer and the owner/distributor, which may take the form of an express contract depending upon the configuration of the online site.

Alan, I think the closer analogy to the online experience would be where a consumer rents media for personal consumption. They do enter into a similar "license" relationship, in that their reproduction is either governed by statutue or controlled by the t erms of the license (if any).

I cannot be more specific as to California law that might cover such a relationship as you described. U.S. copyright law is rife with cases covering my examples.

Enjoy your thesis and I look forward to practicing with you soon (prior to his beginnning his doctorate thesis, Alan was a most capable attorney with the Paris firm of Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn).

-Dave Green
Senior Corporate Counsel, Corbis Received on Wed Jan 08 2003 - 16:45:06 GMT