Caught in a Copyright Timebomb: “Friday the 13th: The Game”
By: Ian Lipka
On May 26th, 2017, Friday the 13th: The Game released on both PC and console platforms. Players young and old ventured into the hazy horror that was Camp Crystal Lake, the infamous fictional summer camp from the 1980 film Friday the 13th. Brandishing the horrific terror of Jason Voorhees, players hunted one another through cabins and trees in thrilling fashion. But to the dismay of many avid partakers, the game would not receive any content updates after September of 2018. That same month, a federal district court would declare that Victor Miller, the screenplay writer of the original film, had accumulated a termination of rights claim as the original author of the work under the Copyright Act of 1976.[1] The court ruled that Victor Miller was not a “work for hire” when he wrote the screenplay for Friday the 13th and therefore was permitted to terminate his delegation of copyrights under 17 U.S.C. § 203.[2]
Thus, the initial copyright holders with which the game’s rights were contracted on, Horror, Inc., could no longer guarantee copyright to the material from the first film. Horror, Inc. appealed the district court’s decision, and game development was forced to cease until litigation ended. The fate of Friday the 13th: The Game would ultimately be quite grim. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision in 2021.[3] The game would be delisted from all digital platforms in December of 2023. Official servers were officially shut down in December of 2024. The game fell victim to a copyright timebomb that had been brewing since Miller wrote the script for the 1980 film decades before. And it was all thanks to Section 203.
Copyright Termination Under 17 U.S.C. § 203
Under Section 203 of the Copyright Act of 1976, the original author of a copyrighted work may terminate a grant of copyright delegation during a five-year window after a period of thirty-five years.[4] The termination provision is frequently discussed through the lens of the music industry.[5] However, the balance between studios and artists alike looms across many platforms. Much legal scholarship calls to reform the termination provision of the Copyright Act of 1976.[6] And while the purpose of termination rights is to eventually equalize bargaining power between new authors and massive studios, the initial bargain is vastly disproportionate.[7] The construction of Section 203 (and the unalienable right to termination) thus poses a threat to a studio’s intellectual property (“IP”) portfolios, and with it, the studio’s profits.[8] Thus, Section 203 creates tension between artists and studios from day one. Termination rights incentivize studios to exhaust the IP’s market before it returns to the original author.[9]
The Lesson from Horror, Inc. v. Miller
The case of Horror Inc. v. Miller highlights how termination can send ripples across various mediums and platforms associated with an IP. Friday the 13th: The Game began as an independent crowdfunded project that initially raked in $823,704 in funding.[10] As a result of the copyright termination litigation, these initial contributions led to only one year of content updates. By failing to consider certain points– including the market appeal of Friday the 13th: The Game– both Horror, Inc. and Miller left a lot of money on the table.[11]
The legacy of Friday the 13th: The Game may not be widely known, but it should inform third parties to take precautionary steps when dealing with old IPs. The next couple of years could see termination suits arising out of IPs and media from the late 1980s into the 1990s.[12] One SYFY article from 2019 alone noted that various original authors and some estates were utilizing Section 203 to terminate rights to franchises such as Terminator, Die Hard, Nightmare on Elm Street, Beetlejuice, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.[13] Much like Jason’s victims at Camp Crystal Lake, a failure to plan around Section 203 could leave unknowing developers and consumers alike at the bottom of murky (financial) waters.
[1] See Horror Inc. v. Miller, 335 F.Supp.3d 273, 320–321 (D. Conn. 2018).
[2] Id at 311.
[3] See Horror Inc. v. Miller, 15 F.4th 232, 236 (2d. Cir. 2021).
[4]See generally 17 U.S.C.A. § 203(a)(3).
[5] Michael A. Biederstadt, Mayhem Looming in the Music Industry in 2013, 23 DCBA Brief 28 (2012).
[6] See, e.g., Amy Gilbert, The Time Has Come: A Proposed Revision to 17 U.S.C § 203, 66 Case. W. Res. L. Rev. 807 (2016); and Chase A. Brennick, Termination Rights in the Music Industry: Revolutionary or Ripe for Reform?, 93 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 786 (2018).
[7] John Blanchford, The Screenwriter’s Right to Terminate Copyright Grants and the Incentives this Creates for Movie Studios, 33 Tex. Intell. Prop. L.J. 369, 381 (2025).
[8] Id at 398.
[9] Id at 399.
[10] Randy Greenback, Friday the 13th the Game, Kickstarter, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/randygbk/friday-the-13th-the-game (last visited Oct. 14, 2026).
[11] Kenneth Stratton, Property Law–Horror, Inc. v. Miller: The Lurking, Underlying Worth Beneath Crystal Lake!, 44 W. New Eng. L. Rev. 367, 399–400 (2022).
[12] Joshua M. Dalton, ‘A Second Bite at the Apple’: Copyright Case Highlights Section 203 Recapture Rights, Morgan Lewis (Oct. 22, 2024), https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2024/10/a-second-bite-at-the-apple-copyright-case-highlights-section-203-recapture-rights.
[13] Josh Weiss, As Terminator Heads Back to Theaters, a Battle is Brewing Over the Film’s Rights, SYFY (Oct. 2, 2019, 4:49 PM), https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/terminator-film-rights-battle#:~:text=According%20to%20The%20Hollywood%20Reporter,grant%20made%2035%20years%20ago.%22.