James Cameron wasrecently litigate yet again for Avatar , the latest in a retentive line of plagiarism accusations against the director stretch back to Terminator . But is Cameron a serial plagiarist , or just a democratic target for right of first publication case ?
Prog rock-and-roll phantasy artist Roger Dean suing James Cameron over Avatar
There are certainly some cases ( Sally Mann ’s in particular , and chip in the similarities between the opening of “ Soldier ” and The Terminator , likely Harlan Ellison ’s as well ) where Cameron may well be at fault , but some of the suits that have been lodged against the director are base on rather flimsy threads . The myriad Avatar suit seem to indicate , if anything , that many of the themes that toss off up in Avatar are plebeian to a lot of stories , although a couple of the accusations , such as Eric Ryder ’s , may have more tooth , depending on how the evidence shakes out .
It ’s deserving note that these are n’t the only instances in which Cameron has been criminate of adoption image and ideas ; these are simply the ones in which some shape of sound action was follow . And these are n’t the only lawsuits involving Cameron and his films .
Film : Terminator
complainant : Harlan Ellison
Claim : Most of the information about Ellison ’s charges against Cameron comes from Ellison himself — so take it with whatever food grain of salt you palpate Ellison warrantee . The way Ellison tells it , he begin hearing rumblings during the yield of Terminator that it was sound a bit like his Outer Limits installment “ Soldier , ” which Ellison had accommodate from his 1957 tarradiddle “ Soldier From Tomorrow . ” Ellison claim that his requests to study the hand were denied and that he was n’t invited to the critics screening . When he managed to sneak into one of the screenings , he felt that the first few minutes of Terminator were identical to “ Soldier . ”
If true , another aspect of Ellison ’s title is more compelling . He says that he was contacted by a friend at Starlog , who said that the magazine was receiving pressure from Cameron ’s representatives to excise a quote from an interview Cameron gave Starlog . According to Ellison , in the original transcript of the interview , Cameron says that he induce the idea for Terminator from a smattering of Outer Limits episodes . Ellison also claims that another acquaintance report to him that he ’d heard Cameron bluster that he ’d “ ripped off a couple of Harlan Ellison level ” in the writing of Terminator . ( Many people have noted that , in addition to “ Soldier , ” “ Demon with a Glass Hand , ” another Ellison Outer Limits episode , bears sure similarities to Terminator . )
Result : It does n’t appear that Ellison ever file a charge ; he says that the studio apartment was eager to settle the case out of court . He put the monetary liquidation in the vicinity of $ 65,000 and now the Terminator credits include an acknowledgement of give thanks you to Harlan Ellison .
Edit : Just to be percipient , because there has been some misunderstanding in sure twenty-five percent : It ’s been well cover and recorded that the manufacturer of Terminator settled with Ellison and that the cite in the credits is part of that liquidation . Ellison is the elemental source , however , for several details of the case , notably regarding the Starlog interview .
Notes : Ellison is for sure no unknown to lawsuits , having been a complainant in suits against CBS Paramount Television ( for his work on the original Star Trek series ) , Fantagraphics ( claiming he was asperse in the Quran Comics As Art ( We tell You So)—in anecdotes about a libel lawsuit once launched against Ellison , no less ) , and the makers of the motion-picture show In Time ( until he saw the film and decide it was not , in fact , an adaptation of his tarradiddle “ ‘ Repent , Harlequin ! ’ Said the Ticktockman ” ) . Cameron , for his part , continued to deny Ellison ’s claims and object to the change in the Terminator credits .
Here is Ellison talking about the case :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwyyJ3D3g1E
moving-picture show : Terminator 2 : Judgment Day
Plaintiffs : William Green , Filia and Constantinos Kourtis
Claim : This is definitely one ( technically two ) of the weirder right of first publication suits to be filed against Cameron . Filia and Constantinos Kourtis developed the concept for a moving-picture show called The Minotaur , about a half - man , half - bull creature that could shapeshift into various human forms . The couple hired William Green to compose the script , and began shopping it around in 1989 . James Cameron expressed some interestingness in the book , but ultimately , the labor was n’t produce .
When Terminator 2 came out , the Kourtises believe that the shapeshifting T-1000 was inspired by their minotaur . Green filed suit against Cameron and the other manufacturing business of Terminator 2 for copyright violation . The Kourtises later filed their own separate suit .
leave : Green v. Schwarzenegger was give notice by the US District Court on summary judgment because “ no reasonable fact - finder could feel that [ the screenplay based on the Kourtises ’ concept ] and ‘ Terminator 2 ’ are
substantially similar under Union copyright law . ” After a sum-up judgment in favour of Mario Kassar , one of the Terminator producer , a US District Court tell the Kourtises to bear Kassar ’s attorney fees . When the Kourtises failed to pay up , the court freeze their suits against Cameron and the other film producer .
Federal Reserve note : The Kourtises ’ lawsuit is really consider more interesting from a adjective standpoint than an intellectual belongings one . When the Kortises brought their case after Green ’s casing had been dismissed , the Ninth Circuit had to determinewhether they were collaterally estopped from pursuing their suit . Their subject was permitted to go ahead .
moving picture : True Lies
complainant : Lucien Lambert
Claim : Cameron is technically a suspect in this courtship , but it ’s highly unlikely that he had any hand in the alleged piracy here . True Lies is a remake of the 1991 French film La Totale ! , point and co - written by Claude Zidi . Screenwriter Lucien Lambert claimed that La Totale ! was free-base on his 1982 script Emilie and lodge lawsuit against Zidi and Cameron in French motor lodge .
lead : Lambert lost his initial suit as he was not able-bodied to rise that Emilie predated La Totale ! However , he prevailed on appeal . Since Cameron purchased the remaking rightfield in undecomposed trust , he was not ordered to yield any scathe to Lambert . Instead , Zidi was ordered to pay scathe out of the $ 15 million he received from the remake .
Notes : Although Lambert ’s attorney , Olivier Meyer , notes that Cameron was n’t at legal fault , he still arrest his shaft in at the director . Varietyquotes him as saying , “ It is not very nice for James Cameron , who is really not at error in all of this , but a moral sound judgment has been made still . When you buy something , you have to be intimate where it has come from . ”
Film : Titanic
Plaintiff : Sally Mann
Claim : You eff those sketches that show up in Jack ’s sketch block ? Well , some folk thought those sketches were a teeny-weeny bit familiar . One person is photographer Sally Mann , who accused Cameron of re-create her controversial photographRodney Plogger at 6:01(child nudeness at the link ) for the sketchbook without her license . Cameron has claimed that he drew the sketches himself .
ensue : Cameron reportedly settled with Mann before that yr ’s Academy Awards .
note : Rodney Plogger at 6:01 is n’t the only photograph that allegedly turn up in Jack ’s sketch block . An clause inNew York Magazinepoints to two other probable photographic inspirations : Alfred Stieglitz ’s Georgia O’Keeffe , Hands , 1920 and Brassaï ’s “ Bijou ” of Montmartre .
Series : Dark Angel
complainant : Carlos Trillo and Carlos Meglia
Claim : Trillo and Meglia are the creators of Cybersix , a comic book series that was after adapted as a live - action idiot box series and an animated television series . The serial midpoint on Cyber-6 , an artificially created mechanical man created by the evil Dr. Von Reichter . After the Cybers rise up , Von Reichter ordered them destroyed and only Cyber-6 survived . She takes on the identicalness of a male high shoal literature instructor , but battles Con Reichter ’s creations by night . Trillo and Meglia initiated a suit against Cameron and the Fox Broadcasting Company , claiming that Dark Angel borrows much of its plot and many details from Cybersix . The websiteAxxón list several of the perceived similaritiesbetween the comic and the show .
leave : In a 2007 interview , Trillo said that he and Meglia were not able to afford an attorney to further follow the case in Los Angeles . He continued to preserve that Dark Angel was base on Cybersix .
Notes : Carlos Meglia passed off in 2008 , and Carlos Trillo pass in 2011 . A 2005 article in the Daily Radar suggested another inspiration for Dark Angel : Robert Heinlein ’s 1982 novel Friday .
moving-picture show : Avatar ( Lawsuit # 1 )
Plaintiff : Zhou Shaomou
Result : The Taiwanese courtroom send away the case in 2010 . The royal court found Zhou render deficient evidence to proceed with the eccentric .
Film : Avatar ( Lawsuit # 2 )
complainant : Emil Malak
Claim : In Malak ’s screenplay , Terra Incognita , creatures with tails and braid pilus are oppose their planet from a militaristic group of humankind looking to mine minerals . Their community life also centers around a tree diagram that contains the community members ’ share memories . Malak claims that he sent the script to Lightstorm Entertainment , Cameron ’s production party , in 2002 , and that the “ essential building block ” of his script were used for Avatar .
ensue : Malak filed his financial statement of claim in Vancouver . consort to theVancouver Sun , congressman of 20th Century Fox have claim that a hand scheme of Avatar has exist since 1996 , and Malak agree to discharge the pillow slip if that claim could be proven . However , when Malak had a screenshot provided by Fox in 2010 analyzed by two computer experts , the experts said that the screenshot did not testify the date of the file . Malak and his lawyer have call for the original Indian file , but it has not been put up . Since the file has not been provided two years after the initial request , a Federal Court judge discover for spoliation of grounds in October 2012 . The suit is ongoing .
Film : Avatar ( Lawsuit # 3 )
complainant : Kelly Van
lay claim : Kelly Van ’s novel Sheila the Warrior : The Damned , which was published online in 2003 , is about a woman who travel to the breathtakingly beautiful planet Tibet , which is threatened by the alien “ Blood Suckers ” that are looking to control the planet ’s minerals . Van filed a complaint claiming that the plot , reference ( along with their physique , demeanor , attire , and rituals ) , preferences , and panorama from Avatar were borrowed from Sheila the Warrior .
Result : No surprise on this one : the US District Court ignore Van ’s caseful , pronounce that the commonalities between the ideas were too nonobjective to guarantee a copyright violation . The similarities in plot of ground , themes , dialogue , setting , gait , characters , and sequence of events were deem insufficient to be infringing .
Film : Avatar ( Lawsuit # 4 — The Interesting One )
complainant : Eric Ryder
Claim : Eric Ryder ’s case is distinct from the other Avatar claim in that Ryder claims he was actually bring with Cameron ’s Lightstorm Entertainment on a intervention of his playscript , K.R.Z. 2068.According to Ryder ’s complaint , he spent two years from , 1996 - 1998 , working with Lightstorm to develop “ an environmentally themed 3D epic about a corporation ’s settlement and plundering of a distant moon ’s lush and wondrous born setting , the corporation ’s spy sent to crush an insurrection on the distant moon among anthropomorphic , organically created beings populating that moon , and the undercover agent ’s remote perception experience with the beingness , excited affixation to one of them in particular , and eventual spiritual transformation into a drawing card of the lunar beings ’ revolt against the corporation ’s mining practice session . ” He claims that he was eventually told by Lightstorm that they would not go fore with product because no one was interested in an environmentally themed scifi film .
Result : In January , a Los Angeles Superior Courtordered Cameron to ferment over any and all drafts of Ryder ’s K.R.Z. 2068 script . In a pledged statement , Cameron claims that has never gather or communicated with Ryder and did not use any textile create by Ryder . The lawsuit is ongoing .
movie : Avatar ( Lawsuit # 5 )
Plaintiff : Gerald Morawski
Claim : optic effects designer Gerald Morawski claims that he sold Cameron four pieces of art in 1991 , and during their meeting , Morawski incline his theme for a moving-picture show called Guardians of Eden , which would play off an evil mining company against an autochthonic clan that lives in concordance with its rainforest abode . He says that he faxed Lightstorm Entertainment a conceptual sum-up of Guardians of Eden and signed a confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement , but was later assure that he would have to drop a line a screenplay in order for production to move onward . Morawski never write a screenplay . He sued Cameron and Lightstorm for breach of contract , fraud , and negligent misrepresentation .
Result : The US District Court give the defendants ’ motion for sum-up sagacity , recover that each of the alleged similarities between Avatar and Guardians of Eden could be chance in Cameron ’s earlier work . The timing of Cameron ’s coming together with Morawski and the developing of Avatar was view as “ not by itself sufficient to give rise to an illation of utilisation . ”
movie : Avatar ( Lawsuit # 6 )
complainant : Bryant Moore
title : Sick of Avatar causa yet ? Bryant Moore claimed that Avatar was establish on not one but two of his screenplay , Aquatica and descendant : The Pollination . The alleged similarities include bioluminescent flora and fauna , unbreathable atmosphere , a hero who move from being a warrior to one who apprize nature , and a conflict for command of a grand timber . He also claimed that he sent both playscript to Tom Cohen , Lightstorm ’s Creative Executive . More sued for $ 2.5 billion , including $ 1 billion in punitive damages .
leave : The US District Court dismissed the case in March 2013 , rein that Moore ’s claims “ give out because there is no substantial similarity between suspect ’ apparent movement pic Avatar and either of Plaintiff ’s book and because Plaintiff failed to plead the existence of any inculpate - in - fact contract between Plaintiff and any Defendant . ”
flick : Avatar ( Lawsuit # 7 )
complainant : Elijah Schkeiban
lay claim : Elijah Schkeiban take thatAvatar infringed upon his Bats and Butterflies franchise , and that the two stories follow a similar serial publication of effect . The complaint also advert musical passage of dialogue Schkeiban claimed were interchangeable , along with similarity in the themes and mise en scene .
leave : This is another complainant who finish up devote Cameron ’s effectual fees . In September 2012,US District Court Judge Manuel Realthrew out the case , saying that Bats and Butterflies was “ a straight nipper ’s history that lacks the profoundness and complexity of the moods expressed in Avatar . ”
picture : Avatar ( Lawsuit # 8)
Plaintiff : Roger Dean
take : The latest suit against Cameron comes from visual creative person Roger Dean . Dean filed a $ 50 million case against Cameronon June 27 , 2013 , say that Avatar substantially re-create simulacrum from Dean ’s fantasy picture .
Result : This one has just been filed , so we ’ll have to wait and see whether a judge find Dean ’s claims viable , or if it gets tossed like most of the other Avatar lawsuits . you’re able to say our station aboutthe similarities between Dean ’s graphics and Avatar hereandCameron ’s comment about whether a Yes album cover make by Dean was an inhalation : “ It might have been … Back in my pot - smoke day . ”
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AvatarHarlan EllisonJames CameronTerminatorTerminator 2
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