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Inexplicable why it took until today for this lawsuit to be filed in Manhattan federal court because it was a total “duh”. Here’s the backstory: the Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust holds the copyright to the short story by Cornell Woolrich which is the basis for the 1954 suspense classic Rear Window after Alfred Hitchcock and actor James Stewart obtained the movie rights. The lawsuit argues that Disturbia‘s maker DreamWorks, its parent company Viacom, Steven Spielberg and others should have done the same to avoid copyright infringement. (I’m told that 1998 TV remake of Rear Window, starring Christopher Reeve, obtained the Trust’s permission.)
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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This is horseshit of the first order.
And everything that it didn’t steal from REAR WINDOW, it stole from FRIGHT NIGHT.
Like that’s news. Where have they been. Movies, books, Television, etc. rip each other off, it’s the rules of the game.
Jeez, I don’t know about this. This means every time Tarantino pays “homage” (okay, steals), there’ll be a lawsuit. And wasn’t De Palma’s early “Sisters” a riff on “Rear Window?” And wasn’t “Body Double” called “Rear Window with herpes?” Sorry, Nikki, but this smells like a total waste of time and money.
Jeez, I don’t know about this. This means every time Tarantino pays “homage” (okay, steals), there’ll be a lawsuit. And wasn’t De Palma’s early “Sisters” a riff on “Rear Window?” And wasn’t “Body Double” called “Rear Window with herpes?” Sorry, Nikki, but this smells like a total waste of time and money.
Considering EVERY review of the Disturbia brought up REAR WINDOW color me surprised as well that it took this long for a lawsuit to pop up. Of course DreamWorks should be sued. So should its writer. It’s blatantly obvious that it’s a rip-off and not a well veiled one at that.
What the?? I thought this was a REMAKE of Rear Window!! You’re telling me it wasn’t?!
Wait, somebody got credit for ‘writing’ Disturbia?
You can’t copyright an idea, only expressions of an idea. I don’t know enough about the Woolrich short story to have an educated opinion whether Disturbia infringes on that story. And I bet neither Nikki nor anyone who is commenting here has read the story either so as to have an educated opinion.
You want a rip off artist? do some looking into Paul Thomas Anderson.
I had always assumed that, at least at some point, Disturbia really was just a remake of Rear Window where the studio only the changed the title because they didn’t think the title Rear Window meant anything to their target audience.
“You can’t copyright an idea, only expressions of an idea.”
Okay, Richard, let’s look at the two movies:
REAR WINDOW – A man unable to leave his home spies on his neighbors and suspects one of them is a murderer.
DISTURBIA – A teenager unable to leave his home spies on his neighbors and suspects one of them is a murderer.
Sounds pretty expressive to me.
Here’s my idea for a movie: A young boy befriends a lovable space alien trying to return to its home planet. No way Spielberg would sue over that.
You don’t think Spielberg would file suit over that.
Golly. Don’t tell the Japanese, they’ll be suing everybody in Hollywood. Every game show, action picture, and god knows what the fuck else the Networks (remember that infamous “memo?”) and Studios have made in the last five years belong to ideas they originating in Japan.
Stealing is an art form in this town, ask any writer who’s been ripped off by the AMPTP.
Like a lot of people I thought Disturbia was just a pubescent parody of Rear Window, like what Bugsy Malone did for gangster movies.
Looks like someone didn’t want to pay someone else for the privilege. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that this lawsuit will probably cost much more than just paying the Woolrich estate a few bucks before the flick was made.
I’m sure the reason it took so long is that it is nearly impossible to win a copyright infringement suit in the USA. The bar was set decades ago when the authors of the play STALAG 17 sued the makers of HOGAN’S HEROES — which, despite several comic liberties, was nearly as blatant a rip-off as DISTURBIA. The playwrights lost the case, and that bar hasn’t been lowered over the years. (This is why the owners of BUENA SERA, MRS. CAMPBELL haven’t sued over MAMMA MIA yet…) When I worked at Miramax in the late Nineties, we were developing an adaptation of the British mini-series MOTHER LOVE. To our horror, Tri-Star produced a movie called HUSH, which bore striking similarities to our property. We catalogued dozens of them, but our lawyers told us there was no point. Forget it, Jake — it’s copyright infringement town.
Today in between editing my screenplay. I decided to well do some legal research. Little did I know this would be law suit week.
First for those of you with access to a law library try entertainment and sports law by the ABA. Their is a great article on how Hollywood rips off well everybody. Title/The Fine print can ( and Probably will Kill you) How Motion Picture studios account to avoid paying.
I loved the spin in this article by Peter Nekom on the nasty 20 percent royalty and how the suits define a 50 percent profit margin sans 38 percent union fees, foreign tax deductions etc.
Finally for you nerds ( like me) and non- lawyers ( like you) read how the copyright violation in the case of A Slice of Pie Productions v. Wayans Bros Entert 487 F Supp. 2d 41 (2007) turned out. Trust me the plaintiff didn’t win. So much for CR violations.
Case closed on suing anyone about CR. Art Buchwald is dead and as it said in one of my screenwriting mags, these guys are billionaires. They can paper you to death.
Oh one more thing, caz like the article said the Players have a thousand ways to turn a $ 1 dvd into a $20 sale. And the writers well, how many cents do they get out of that $20?
Almost thought they’d gotten away with it.
I heard this was intended to be a remake. Hitchcock fans should hope the lawsuit doesn’t go through, because I know I wouldn’t want that garbage film being associated with the brilliant “Rear Window.”
I think it happens all the time. Off the top of my head, I thought “Loser” with Jason Biggs was a blatent rip off of “The Apartment”. When producers I meet with have an idea and I say “isn’t that a lot like…” they always say “don’t worry, it won’t be a problem.” It’s funny the way “homage” is too often used to described films that are basically stealing from another film. We all learn from the past and are influenced, but it is clear when someone is cheating…
Funny how karma works. I wrote a spec called “E.T. II – Star 69″ — basic premise was that the aliens “called back” and now they wanted all their stuff, including area 51 ships, etc.
The script was hailed as brillant but no one would touch it of for fear of “getting crushed by Speilberg’s legal team.”
BTW – Someone mentioned in this thread that P.T. Anderson steals. How so? I don’t get it.
Brett
“The only ‘ism’ that Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.” — Dorothy Parker
If there’s a case here, I don’t understand why Universal wasn’t sued over THE FAST & THE FURIOUS, which shamelessly transplanted just about every one of POINT BREAK’s plot points. And THE GIRL NEXT DOOR was a carbon copy of RISKY BUSINESS….
Isn’t EAGLE EYE a rip-off of NORTH BY NORTHWEST?
It’s about time. I could not believe how they stole The Rear Window and turned it into some stupid teen “thriller”. No respect at all. I hope they’ll pay a lot of money.
About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.
Josh Billings (1818 – 1885)
Don’t worry about people stealing your story ideas.
If it’s actually an original idea, you will have to ram it down their throats to accept it.