Page:Craft v. Kobler.pdf/3

 was his amanuensis, personal assistant and closest intellectual and musical confidant. He was a member of the Stravinsky household and became virtually an adoptive son to the Maestro and Mrs. Stravinsky. Craft is the author or co-author of approximately 15 copyrighted books on Stravinsky. These include several books written by Craft alone, several co-authored by Craft and Stravinsky, four “conversation” books written in the form of interviews of Stravinsky by Craft, a three-volume compendium of Stravinsky’s correspondence with explanatory text and annotations by Craft, and one co-authored by Craft and Stravinsky’s widow. [The Stravinsky books authored or co-authored by Craft are here referred to as the “Craft-Stravinsky Writings.”]

The defendants are Kobler and Macmillan Inc., the publisher of Firebird. Kobler is a professional writer of 50 years’ experience. He has written several biographies and over 60 magazine articles. His Firebird manuscript is of approximately 120,000 words. The most recent printed bound galleys prepared by Macmillan present a book of 337 pages. Kobler has spent in excess of two years researching and writing Firebird. His research included approximately 80 interviews and the reading of hundreds of books and articles. He does not dispute that the Craft-Stravinsky Writings are a very important source of his information, nor that his book frequently quotes from them.

Firebird is richly stocked with quotations of Stravinsky taken from the Craft-Stravinsky literature. Although Craft is not the author of the Stravinsky portions of his books, so that his copyright would not normally cover them, Stravinsky willed to Craft his own copyright in those books. This suit is brought primarily to protect the Stravinsky copyright interest which Craft inherited. To a lesser extent, the suit also involves Craft-written material.

Upon Craft’s institution of this lawsuit, plaintiff and defendants entered into a voluntary standstill agreement to allow adequate time for presentation of a motion for preliminary injunction. Plaintiff presented a two-column table setting forth in the one column the complete text of plaintiff’s allegedly infringed material and, side-by-side, the full text of the Kobler passage cited as infringing. Plaintiff’s initial table presented 230 instances of alleged infringement. The defendants reproduced the table, adding a third column in which defendants summarize their contentions as to why each instance should not be considered an infringement. As to some, defendants contended that Craft does not own the copyright in the allegedly infringed material. After review of defendants’ arguments, plaintiff dropped a number of his specifications, reducing the number of claimed instances of infringement from 230 to 167. Defendants, on the other hand, have conceded by stipulation Craft’s copyright ownership in some of the works initially questioned.

The hearing on the motion for preliminary injunction was by submission. The principal submissions are the comparative table; a stipulation of facts; depositions of Craft and of Kobler; the complete manuscript of Firebird, and fourteen of the volumes of the Craft-Stravinsky Writings.