CONTRACTS TRUMPHS COPYRIGHT  

Brackett v. Hilton Hotels Corp., N.D. Cal., 08-02100, 6/30/08): The Court refused to dismiss a tortous interference with contract claim based chiefly on the making and distribution of unauthorized prints of a limited edition artwork.

In a recent decision by a California federal district court - Brackett v. Hilton Hotels Corp., N.D. Cal., 08-02100, 6/30/08).- the Court refused to dismiss a tortous interference with contract claim based chiefly on the making and distribution of unauthorized prints of a limited edition artwork. 

The interference theory was that the infringer's relatively large-scale reproduction of an original print that was sold by the artist as a limited edition print (only 150 copies) interfered with the artist's contracts with purchasers of the original print who assumed they were buying one of a very limited print edition.  Notably, the original distributor intentionally removed the limited edition notation and made or "authorized" larger scale copying and distribution

Because there was, in the Court's view, an additional element of interference with a contract, this cause was not preempted by federal copyright law The key is that the tortous interference claim opened the defendants up to a punitive damages claim - ie, really big money. (Hey, in the immortal words of Willie Sutton, American bank robber and folk philosopher, "that's where the money is.")