Michael Lucas Has Been Vindicated By Federal Court

Published on April 2, 2010 by QueenGossip   ·   2 Comments

Michael Lucas’ multi-award-winning movie, Michael Lucas’ La Dolce Vita, has been vindicated by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which ruled for Lucas in a summary judgment motion that the two-part saga does not violate a mainstream company’s claimed copyright for Federico Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece La Dolce Vita (“The Sweet Life”).

U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl ruled that the plaintiff, International Media Films, Inc. (IMF), which had sued Lucas and his company, Lucas Entertainment, for copyright and trademark violations, had failed to prove that it had legal rights to the original La Dolce Vita‘s content, and indeed had agreed that the movie was in the public domain in the U.S. prior to January 1, 1996.

According to Judge Koeltl’s ruling, the chain of ownership of La Dolce Vita, which began with the film’s original producer, Riama Film S.P.A., could not be verified past an alleged 1980 agreement which plaintiff claims transferred rights to the film from Cinemat S.A. to Hor A.G., both European companies.

“Dr. Bernd Hammermann, Head of the Land Registry and Public Register Office of Liechtenstein, examined the certified copy of the Cinemat-Hor agreement and has contacted the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Liechtenstein because Dr. Hammermann doubts the authenticity of the certified copy,” Judge Koeltl wrote. “According to Dr. Hammermann, a certified copy of the document bearing the Public Register’s stamp would verify that an official from the Public Register compared the stamped copy to the original on file with the Public Register. Dr. Hammermann doubts the authenticity of the certified copy because it uses the abbreviation ‘Dec. 1980′ for December rather than the German ‘Dez.’ that typically would be used in Liechtenstein, because the fee quoted is higher than the fee charged by the Public Register of Liechtenstein in December 1980, and because the signature from the Public Register is of an employee who was hired by the Public Register after December 1980.”

The court also looked favorably upon challenges of several other IMF’s claims to ownership of the Fellini film, including all of the so-called “legal transfers” of the film from Hor to other entities, and finally to IMF on Sept. 20, 2001, concluding, “IMF has produced no evidence from any person with personal knowledge of the transfers in its purported chain of title except for the final link of the transfer from Cinestampa to IMF.”

Much of the rest of the 26-page decision traces other alleged transfers of ownership of La Dolce Vita, including the defendant’s claim that Paramount Pictures Corp., which has taken no interest in the Lucas Entertainment release, had bought rights to the film from Republic Entertainment and currently owns the U.S. rights to the Fellini movie

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