The appellate court found that the judge's jury instructions, which included the statement that the labor of research by an author is protected by copyright, had been given in error.

[1] In December 1968, a 20-year-old Emory University student named Barbara Jane Mackle was kidnapped from an Atlanta motel room.

Mackle was driven away in a van and taken to a remote location in the Georgia woods where she was placed in a wooden, coffin-like box, and buried alive.

In February 1972, William Frye, a Universal City Studios television producer, read the Reader's Digest version and contacted Miller and told him he thought it would make a good made-for-television film.

Soon after the broadcast, Gene Miller filed suit in United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida accusing Universal City Studios, Inc., American Broadcasting Companies and Post-Newsweek Stations Florida, Inc., of copyright infringement, unfair competition, and punitive damages.

He described how Universal City Studios producer William Frye contacted him about obtaining the film rights for the book but no money had been exchanged and no agreement had been signed.

Miller testified to the number of similarities between his book, 83 Hours Till Dawn, and the Universal film version, The Longest Night.

Miller pointed out these similarities were only in his book and not in any of the available public records such as the newspaper accounts and the court transcripts made during the criminal prosecution of Mackle's kidnappers.

The judge based his instruction about allowing copyright protection for a writer's research on Reyher v. Children's Television Workshop, 533 F.2d 87, 90 (2nd Cir.