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Garcia v. Google

III

The harm the majority fears would result from recognizing performers' copyright claims in their fixed, original expression is overstated. The vast majority of copyright claims by performers in their contributions are defeated by a contract and the work for hire doctrine. See 1 Nimmer on Copyright § 6.07[B][2] at 6-28 to 6-29; 2 William F. Patry, Patry on Copyright § 5:17 (2010). And most of the performers that fall through the cracks would be found to have given an implied license to the film's producers to use the contribution in the ultimate film. See Effects Associates, 908 F.2d at 558. Very few performers would be left to sue at all, and the ones that remain would have to find suing worth their while. They wouldn't be able to claim the valuable rights of joint authorship of the movie, such as an undivided share in the movie or the right to exploit the movie for themselves. See 1 Nimmer on Copyright § 6.08 at 6-34 to 636. Rather, their copyright claims would be limited to the original expression they created. See Aalmuhammed, 202 F.3d at 1232; Effects Associates, 908 F.2d at 559. Which is why filmmaking hasn't ground to a halt even though we held a quarter-century ago that "where a non-employee contributes to a book or movie, . . . the exclusive rights of copyright ownership vest in the creator of the contribution, unless there is a written agreement to the contrary." Effects Associates, 908 F.2d at 557.

Regardless, the Supreme Court has reminded us that "speculation about future harms is no basis for [courts] to shrink authorial rights." N.Y. Times Co. v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483, 505–06 (2001). In Tasini, freelance authors argued that the inclusion in databases of their articles that originally appeared in periodicals infringed their copyrights in the