Articles Posted in Idea Submission – Implied In Fact Contract

Reality TV writer Henry Haraway filed a copyright infringement and breach of contract case against E! Entertainment Television and William Morris Endeavor talent agency, just to name a few. To see the rest of the defendants and to read the entire complaint, click here. Plaintiff alleges that he wrote a one page synopsis for a reality TV competition called “Opening Act”, described as “battle of the band type of competition local bands with dreams of big time recording contracts will battle it out for a chance to perform as the opening act for a major recording artist in their genre of music.”

As any prudent writer should do, Plaintiff registered the synopsis with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2003. He then submitted it to E! Entertainment and executed its submission agreement. It’s also alleged that William Morris and E! both executed an agreement confirming receipt of the synopsis and acknowledging that the material would not be used without compensating Plaintiff.

Unfortunately for Plaintiff, this appears to be an extremely tough case to win. Copyright law does not protect ideas, only the author’s expressions of that idea. For example, one cannot protect an idea for a reality TV show where contestants sing and are voted off by either judges or viewers, otherwise American Idol would sue America’s Got Talent. Similarly, the authors of the movie Tombstone could not sue the authors of Wyatt Earp, even though both movies told the story of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and the shootout at the O.K. Corral. But if Wyatt Earp copied the script of Tombstone, a copyright infringement claim would arise.

The race for Mandeville-Anthony was over before it even began. In March of this year, Plaintiff sued Disney and Pixar alleging that the Cars and Cars 2 animated motion pictures infringed his copyrights. Also, Plaintiff claimed that Disney and Pixar stole his idea for the motion pictures from his work that he submitted to Disney and Pixar employees.

Disney and Pixar quickly filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings under FRCP 12(c), which means after the complaint, answer, counterclaims and reply, if any, are filed, a defendant can seek early judgment that – based on the pleadings alone – a plaintiff cannot meet its burden of proof. In a short one page opinion, the Court dismissed the copyright infringement claim because the parties’ works are not substantially similar as a matter of law: “[a]mong other things, the protectable elements of the parties’ respective works are dissimilar in plot, sequence of events, pace, themes, dialogue, mood, setting, and characters.” As to the second cause of action for breach of implied contract (aka idea submission), the Court found that the claim was untimely because it was filed after the applicable two-year statute of limitations. Cal. Code Civ. Pro. 339(1).

Reviewing Defendants’ motion shed’s light on the flimsy nature of Plaintiff’s allegations: “How Plaintiff can contend these characters [pictured here] are similar is mystifying. . . In short, the parties’ expressions of the general idea of animated, anthropomorphic cars are extremely different. Any suggestion that the parties’ characters are similar – let alone, substantially similar – would defy the Ninth Circuit’s exhortation that copyright law protects only the specific details of an author’s rendering of an idea, and not the idea itself.”