Horror Inc. Files Appeal In Lawsuit Loss To Victor Miller For Friday The 13th Rights
Yesterday, Larry Zerner mentioned that Sean Cunningham and Horror Inc. had a deadline of October 31st to file an appeal to the ruling in favor of Victor Miller which saw Horror Inc. lose it's lawsuit against the writer of the original Friday The 13th film. In a move that hopefully seems coincidental to yesterday's revelation, Horror Inc. today filed it's appeal of that decision, which will now drag out the rights battle even longer.
Larry mentioned to me that this appeal process COULD take between 18-24 months, if there is no settlement reached between Victor and Horror Inc. However, we both agree that there is no way they would drag this out for that long when there is money being lost by not producing a new film during that time. Stay tuned for the next development.Well, Sean didn't wait the full 30 days to file the Notice of Appeal, which I would take to mean that Sean and Victor are not close to reaching a settlement. https://t.co/TO7cq1tdwv— Larry Zerner (@Zernerlaw) October 18, 2018
About the Rights Battle
Original Friday The 13th film writer Victor Miller filed a notice of termination of copyright on January 26, 2016 for the script he wrote for the film. This is made possible due to a provision in copyright law that allows the termination of copyright 35 years after the work is completed. Furthermore, the termination must be filed two years prior to reclaiming the copyright. Since Miller filed for termination in January 2016 (and later updated the filing in July 2016), he was in line to reclaim the copyright for his work in July 2018.
Horror Inc. (the Friday The 13th rights holder) filed a lawsuit against Victor Miller in 2016 to have his copyright termination claim thrown out. Since that time, the rights battle has taken place in the courts
