Boosey & Hawkes Music Publisher, Ltd. v. The Walt Disney Company
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
145 F.3d 481 (2d Cir. 1998)
In 1939, Disney (defendant) licensed Igor Stravinsky's composition The Rite of Spring for use in Fantasia, with the agreement letting Disney record the piece "in any manner or form" for one motion picture and reserving all unspecified rights to Stravinsky. Fantasia was later released on television and home-video formats like VHS and laser disc as technology advanced. Boosey & Hawkes (plaintiff), Stravinsky's copyright assignee, sued Disney for copyright infringement, arguing the home-video releases exceeded the license's scope; the district court granted Boosey partial summary judgment on that theory, and Disney appealed.
Whether a new use of a licensed copyrighted work made possible by technological change is authorized when that use reasonably falls within the language of the existing license, even though the license predates the new technology.