Film Academy Sues Over Possible Sale of Stolen 'Deer Hunter' Oscar

A three-decade mystery over what happened to the stolen statuette given to sound engineer Aaron Rochin might be solved.

On the night of the Academy Awards, all the nominees want to go home with an Oscar statuette. But what happens when the statuette is damaged?  the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences replaced it and took back the original for repairs. But at the statuette facility, Rochin's original blemished Oscar was then stolen and never found.

Flash forward more than thirty years to last September when a guy named James Dunne allegedly offered for sale on eBay a rare Oscar statuette. Is it the same as the stolen Rochin award?

Oscar winners are required to sign a contract giving the Academy a right to buy their award for $1 if they ever want to sell. And the organization has been diligent in snapping up Oscars that fall into the wrong hands from years before the contracts were required. But this case is unique.

Instead, Dunne is charged with having sold the statuette to another man named Edgard Francisco for $25,000.

The Academy learned of the sale and contacted Dunne, who purportedly explained that he originally acquired the statuette from a moving sale or an estate sale. Francisco was also contacted, and he said that after his purchase, he had taken the statuette to a collector, who said it was a counterfeit. Realizing this, Francisco said he got Dunne to give him a partial $15,000 refund and then discarded the statuette.

According to the complaint, "If the Statuette was a counterfeit, defendants have infringed the Academy's copyright in the © 'Oscar' ® statuette by selling and distributing a counterfeit statuette. If the statuette was authentic, defendants have committed conversion by asserting dominion over the Academy's property and interfering with the Academy's right to possession of its property."

Whether the defendants would be in better position on a real or fake statuette is another question -- probably a good one for a law school exam. The Academy is demanding at least $25,000 in damages for the "reasonable value of the converted Statuette" and actual damages or statutory damages -- up to $150,000 -- for willful copyright infringement.

Read More: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/film-academy-sues-sale-deer-393324