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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.)
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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.
Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.
Daphne du Maurier (1907 – 1989)
Now this is a quote Hollywood can agree with!
Look at the matrix and wanted scripts.
Having seen both films, I don’t see how this would be any kind of copyright infringement. Disturbia and Rear Window share a similar plotline and that is the end of it — it follows a different path, different dialogue, different story. Does Rear Window hold the patent for seeing a murder from a far? You would then have lawsuits over Made of Honor being like My best friends wedding, etc, etc.
This is crazy and btw, Disturbia is one great film.
Remember Kubrick’s unsuccessful lawsuit against the producers of SPACE 1999 for infringing on 2001? This, however, is a much more justified suit. Disturbia IS Rear Window — just not as good.
This is an interesting discussion. Actually Hollywood has a rather good track record of paying people for plots and story ideas.
For example, I could write a book about Howard Stern without getting his permission and everything would be fine. I would only get sued if I slandered him or made things up which weren’t true. But if I were to make a movie about Howard Stern’s life, the tradition has been to pay for his permission. I’m using his name and his likeness. But in the publishing world, I could put Howard’s name on the cover and even have paparazzi photos of him in it and it would be OK.
But let’s say if I were to make a fictional movie about an outrageous shock jock who is like Howard Stern, but has a different name and maybe has a somewhat different background. When the movie comes out, all the critics note the character is like Howard Stern.
Now Howard Stern might or might not sue, depending on whether he liked the movie or not, but would he win? Fiction uses real people all the time. Writers will tell you they based their characters on friends, relatives or public figures. Writing teachers will tell you there are only seven basic plots in fiction that are used over and over again.
I could write a book using the exact same plot points as Gone With the Wind, but as long as I didn’t use any characters’ names, or copy any of the actual text, it wouldn’t be copyright infringement.
Only Hollywood pays for ideas. But because this has been a business tradition, the policy has been upheld in court. But it’s not copyright infringement and it’s not exactly protected by law.
So it becomes somewhat fuzzy about how much you can borrow before a judge or a jury will deem it “derivative” (not plagiarized). I think it has to be pretty much a complete rip-off before a court will side with you.
Usually, these kind of cases are paid off quietly in the mid-five figures, since going to court will cost about that much.
As to Brett who wrote a sequel to ET that no one would buy — come on! You can’t write a sequel to a blockbuster movie and expect to sell it without the original participants’ permission! No Jurassic Park sequels! No Star Wars sequels! That goes beyond being “derivative.” That’s downright theft! You can use it as a spec script to get other writing jobs, but forget about trying to sell it to anyone but the original rights holders.
The same Steven Speilberg who has been blocking the Italian film Great White from being made commercially available in the United States because it’s too similar to Jaws.
Dan Zee has by far the best analysis in these comments.
I find it hard to believe that writerdjb is a lawyer, if he is, he has the worst writing skills I’ve ever seen, legal or otherwise. Beyond that, nothing he says in his comment even makes sense.
Finally, as to tom’s analysis of ‘expression of ideas’ merely by citation of two loglines, it’s substantial similarity in the expression of the work, i.e., the script, not the one sentence pitch, that is protected.
Anyone know if there is a copy of the complaint available online?
Tom
Youre’ comparing Rear Window to Disturbia but that is not what the lawsuit is. The lawsuit is brought by the copyright holders in the Woolrich short story against Disturbia. The question is not how close Disturbia is to Rear Window but how close Disturbia is to the short story. I’ve never read the short story. Without reading it, I have no way to comment on the likelihood of the suit being successful.
But the comparison you do make between the movies – neighbor spies on neighbors and suspects one of murder-is, without more, not likely to win a copyright infringment action.
Obviously, as anyone who has seen both would attest, Disurbia is clearly a parody of Rear Window and exempt from lawsuits under the O’come on, surely they realize this sucks rule which exempts all stupidity from punishment (and hopefully sequels).
“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.”
I had to wrack my brain, but I finally dredged up “Mac and Me,” described thusly on IMDb: “A Mysterious Alien Creature (MAC ?) trying to escape from NASA is befriended by a young boy in a wheel chair.” Well, they came up with the wheel chair.
Maybe Spielberg did sue (I’d be surprised if he didn’t). But it seems typical of the kind of “borrowing” that goes on in books and movies all the time, for better or worse, and without which, let’s face it, some great movies would not exist (see “Reservoir Dogs”).
PANIC ROOM – WAIT UNTIL DARK
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE – THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR phone booth scene.
DISTURBIA/REAR WINDOW is surprising since I thought DISTURBIA was a remake. What’s not surprising is DreamWorks ripping off yet another’s idea.
(snark.)
The trend in idea submission cases will change the game.
If you’ve not heard about the Broken Flowers case, read on: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/03/features/broken.php
At the end of the day, the Trust that holds the copyright in the short story likely has a strong case. Their waiting to file may have less to do with the merits of their claim, than with tactics and strategy.
The rampant theft of IP (and generally bad behaviour) that seems to be an inextricable component of Hollywood culture is a function of ignorance and people making excuses for it. That and the aggrieved party (usually a writer) is so fearful of being black-balled that they don’t even explore, never mind pursue their legal options.
But we live in a country built on the premise that those with an ownership in property have the right to protect it. As part creative, part business, and a trained (but thankfully, non-practicing) lawyer who spends LOTS of time trying to help creatives protect and control their own IP, I always hope that people take enough interest in that which they create to want to protect it.
The Sheldon Abend Trust probably understands better than those most what remedies are available to them under the law of copyright. If more rights holders were willing to file against the 900lb gorillas in this town, it would be a different place. Every creative person in this town should watch and learn.
So many films borrow concept. Should the producers of DIE HARD sue the makers of Undersiege 1&2, Sudden Death, Passenger 57 and so many other films that used the that same terrorist takeover concept? Distubia borrowed concept, but it wasn’t the same exact story as Rear Window!
Really? This is an issue? “X in/with/meets Y” is the oldest pitch out there.
* Disturbia – Rear Window with teenagers.
* Fright Night – Rear Window with vampires.
Same s**t, different decade. Business as usual:
* The Magnificent Seven – Seven Samurai with cowboys
* Star Wars – The Hidden Fortress in space
* Ten Things I Hate About You, O, Get Over It, She’s the Man – Shakespeare in high school
* Forbidden Planet – Shakespeare in space
* West Side Story – Shakespeare in NYC
* Strange Brew – Shakespeare in, uh, Canada
The list could go on and on and on… Good luck with the lawsuits.
In my original draft of “E.T. II = STAR 69″ The main character was named Jack, not “E.T” — BUT Spielberg’s argued that “Jack sounded too much like E.T.” Swear to God. My lawyers and I were shocked beyond silliness, but the judge AGREED! Oy veh!
Brett
Wow this is the stupidest thing I have heard. Does Shakespeare have a trust too because if he did then you all would be in deep ****. Writer have been ripping off him for 400 years plus not to mention the Greek plays as well.
@Another fan, actually, Star Wars is a rip-off of Seven Samurai too… Lucas has even admitted to it…
“Mac and Me” rules as one of the worst movies of all time. Mac (there was a McDonalds tie-in: the alien ate McNuggets like E.T. fetishized Reese’s Pieces, hence Mac’s nickname). And McDonald’s product placement is everywhere — the character’s sibling worked there, and there was a huge dance number (?) at a store, too. I think the company actually kicked in production money, too.
Yes, I’ve gone on too long about Mac And Me, but damn if it isn’t the Plan 9 for the ’80s.
Gee, isn’t “Lion King” a ripoff of “Hamlet”?
Same essential elements.
Wasn’t the Magnificent Secen a ripoff of the Seven Samurai too. Also “Battle Beyond the Stars” was a direct ripooff of Seven Samurai just watch it. For all the claims of its sort of like you could make against any film or book. Its just more money for the bloodsucking lawyers.