TAM LIN 2002TAM LIN 2003 TAM LIN 2004 TAM LIN 2005 |
CastTAM LIN: Brett Holland Since 2002 the play TAM LIN, a tale about true love and the clash between the mortal and supernatural worlds, has been performed in Manhattan at Halloween time. The last three years have been full productions, with increasingly bigger budgets and better production values. The plan was to make TAM LIN a Halloween tradition. Unfortunately in 2004 TAM LIN met Edward Einhorn, an off-off Broadway director with cheap and easy access to the American legal system through his brother David Einhorn of Anderson Kill & Olick PC. When Mergatroyd Productions and Edward Einhorn couldn't come to terms over Einhorn's fee (over a difference, it turned out, of $300) the brothers Einhorn proceeded to register an unauthorized derivative copyright on something they called a "blocking and choreography script." When TAM LIN was produced again in 2005, directed by me, with a completely new set and a revised script, Einhorn sued, claiming that both the 2004 AND 2005 productions used his intellectual property, established through the ill-gotten copyright registration. The case could not be settled because the Einhorns kept offering to grant us "rights" to produce my play in the future. My production partner Jonathan Flagg and I refused to acknowledge Einhorn's imaginary rights. A trial was held in federal court, "Edward Einhorn vs. Mergatroyd Productions", and Einhorn was compelled to cancel his ill-gotten copyright registration. Although legal experts felt that Einhorn never had a case, Einhorn certainly tried to establish a legal precedent for a "director's copyright." He argued that since I knew he was taking notes in his capacity as director, I had given tacit approval for him to create a "blocking and choreography script." Judge Lewis Kaplan did not buy that reasoning, and a lucky thing too, since such a precedent would have crippled American theatre. The New York Times ran an article about the issue in January 2006 Exit, Pursued by a Lawyer which featured our case. In spite of our victory over Einhorn's director's copyright scheme, the case was extremely expensive for us, costing over a hundred thousand dollars. And because of this, we cannot afford to do a full production of TAM LIN in 2006, and instead will be doing a reading. At least the brothers Einhorn, for all their wealth and privilege, sense of entitlement, and absolute lack of any sense of proportion, cannot kill this play. Details about this case, including court transcripts and emails can be read online at The Strange Case of Edward Einhorn vs. Mergatroyd Productions. N. G. McClernan |