Allen v. Academic Games League of America

Beginning in the 1960s, Robert Allen (plaintiff) developed academic games and worked with schools and school districts to integrate the games into classrooms and student academic competitions. Allen held copyrights for the games. Allen developed a sole proprietorship called the National Academic Games Project (NAGP), through which hundreds of students competed in national academic tournaments based on Allen’s games. In 1992, several individuals who had previously been involved in the NAGP tournaments formed the Academic Games League of America (AGLOA) (defendant), a nonprofit corporation that planned to conduct a national academic tournament using some of Allen’s games. Some of the individuals who formed AGLOA had experienced personality conflicts and professional disagreements with Allen, so Allen was not included in AGLOA. Beginning in April 1992, AGLOA held annual tournaments that coincided with NAGP’s national tournament. The AGLOA national tournament was open only to students who had participated in regional competitions in which the students also played Allen’s games. AGLOA purchased games from Allen to sell to the participating schools and never copied any of Allen’s copyrighted materials for use at any AGLOA tournaments. The games were played at the AGLOA tournaments according to rulebooks developed by an AGLOA committee. Allen sued AGLOA in federal district court, asserting claims including copyright infringement. Allen asserted that § 106(4) of the Copyright Act of 1976 (the act) provided that a copyright holder had the exclusive right to perform or authorize others to perform the copyright-holder’s work publicly. According to Allen, AGLOA’s national tournament was an unauthorized public performance of Allen’s copyrighted games. The district court granted summary judgment in AGLOA’s favor on the copyright-infringement claim, and Allen appealed.