The Age Of Aquarian

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has remanded  a claim of patent infringement

Copyright, estate law, and religious writings make for strange bedfellows, but this appeal has them all. It concerns the ownership, licensing, and claimed infringement of copyrights in the spiritual teachings of Keith Milton Rhinehart, late founder and ecclesiastical head of the Aquarian Foundation, a non-profit religious organization. At issue are 177 copyrighted manuscripts, sound recordings, and audio-visual materials registered between 1958 and 2007, along with 44 of what Aquarian characterizes as “Proprietary Works” for the church and its members. Titles range from “Link Your Mind with God,” to “The Magnificent Materialization,” to “How to Protect a Séance or a Person’s Aura from Attack by Earthbound Entities.”

Aquarian brought suit after its leadership discovered that Bruce Lowndes, an active member of Aquarian from the 1970s until 1997, had uploaded copyrighted works to various websites. Lowndes claims that he obtained a license from Rhinehart in 1985, before the church leader died in 1999 and bequeathed his estate to Aquarian via will. Aquarian, in addition to challenging the validity of that license, insists that the license was terminated by Lowndes’s breach of the licensing agreement or, at the very latest, in a letter from the church’s counsel in May 2021.

Held

Like the district court, we hold that Rhinehart created his teachings not as works for hire but under the auspices of his own authorship; Rhinehart licensed his works to Lowndes in 1985; Lowndes did not breach the licensing agreement; and upon Rhinehart’s death in 1999, ownership in the underlying copyrights transferred to Aquarian via will. We also affirm the decision not to award Lowndes attorneys’ fees under the Lanham Act.

We depart, however, from the district court’s determination that, under 17 U.S.C. § 203(a), Aquarian did not terminate the Rhinehart license. Section 203’s requirements for terminating copyright licenses relate to authors and statutory heirs and have no bearing in a case like this one, where Aquarian is not a statutory heir and came into Rhinehart’s copyrights via will. Because we reverse on the termination of the license, we remand for further proceedings concerning any infringement that may have occurred after May 7, 2021, as well as the denial of injunctive relief and attorneys’ fees under the Copyright Act.

Fee fees and fees

Lowndes presented no convincing evidence that Aquarian “vindictively” pursued a baseless claim of trademark infringement. Aquarian showed a reasonable basis to pursue its trademark claim for “higher spiritualism” because both Rhinehart and Aquarian had been using the term since the 1970s. Notwithstanding the vitriolic and colorful language from both sides, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to award attorneys’ fees under the Lanham Act.

The parties shall pay their own fees on appeal.

(Mike Frisch)