“We agree with Plaintiffs that the screenplay shares sufficient similarities with the film to survive a motion to dismiss,” it said. “At the pleading stage, district courts apply the ‘extrinsic test’ for similarity, which asks whether the defendant’s work shares objective similarities of specific expressive elements with the allegedly infringed piece,” the ruling said. The district court dismissed the lawsuit, and it was reinstated by a unanimous three-judge appeals court panel, which stated the dismissal was premature. District Court in Los Angeles charging copyright infringement. The screenwriters and producer Tova Laiter filed suit in U.S. The 2003 movie became the first in a series of Pirates of the Caribbean films. charged in their complaint that they had developed the original spec screenplay Pirates of the Caribbean in 2000 while working with Disney on another project but were told the company was passing on the Pirates project, according to the complaint in Arthur Lee Alfred II et al.
in connection with its film Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. A federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by two screenwriters and a producer against the Walt Disney Co.