Showtime Networks and Lionsgate’s Entertainment One defeated a trial accusing them of having snatched the 2015 survival thriller Eden In Yellow Jackets.
The two follow a football team whose members are starting to present a cult behavior and envisage cannibalism after a landing accident in a distant place. The American district judge Dean Pregerson rejected the trial on Friday, concluding that the plots, the characters, the themes and the parameters of the two works are not similar enough to constitute a copyright violation.
EdenWritten by Nate Parker and distributed by Voltage Pictures, was published in 2015. Sensation of showtime Yellow Jackets was created in 2021 to criticism. His first season game became the most broadcast beginnings in the studio, attracting around 2 million viewers to all platforms. The third season as a whole has been the most observed so far for the series, with its final drawing in 3 million observers during its first seven days.
The alleged similarities of the intrigue between the film and the television series were part of the court analysis, with Prégerson noting that the current calendar in Yellow Jackets “Beste little resemblance” with the story of Eden.
While manufacturers of Eden Argued that the film is strongly alluded to cannibalism, the court said that the plot focuses rather on the debate of the characters on the advisability of refusing the food of the injured survivors. During the two weeks, the film takes place, the faction of the main character is capable of successfully bringing together food without ever considering or resorting to cannibalism, said the order.
The other similarities said the court, are the common tropes found in several survival thrillers. He underlined the death of a head coach and the survival of his two children, attempts at survivors to escape isolation and the division of groups in rival factions.
“There can be no serious conflict that attempts to escape survivors shipwrecked or blocked are widespread throughout fiction and history, from Ulysses, Robinson Crusoe and Gilligan to Shackleton and the Uruguayan rugby team,” Prégerson wrote. “Cases of competition, tribalism and factionism in disaster scenarios or in response to the scarcity of resources are almost as common, from the” storm “to` survivor “to a large part of the post-apocalyptic genre, such as the films” Mad Max “or a certain number of zombie stories, the most archetypically,” Lord of Flies “. »»
And since the two works share basic points of the plot, it is natural that they have identical tones, reasoned the court. He explained: “It is difficult to imagine how a serious drama involving a descent into ritualized cannibalism, and its consequences, could possibly exclude elements of solemnity and contemplation.”
In his decision, Pregerson rejected the arguments that Eden And Yellow Jackets have characters and parameters overlapping. While survivors Eden Are led by Slim – an adult, male and black athlete who serves as a moral compass of the group – Jackie, the captain of the television series team, is represented as a “teenage girl, white, whining and self -absorbed” which is ultimately excluded by its peers.
The judge also stressed that Eden takes place on an uninhabitable tropical island, which, according to him, does not resemble the wild Canadian wilderness Yellow Jackets. “In addition, the framework of the” desolate zone “highlighted by the applicant is a common element of survival stories, including historical events such as the work of the Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes or the party to give in Sierra Nevada,” added Pregerson.
Showtime did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
In recent years, creators and copyright holders have increased more and more daring to bring prosecution for theft of ideas. There was a push by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to limit the early rejection of complaints to violate copyright. In 2022, the Federal Court of Appeal canceled the rejection of a trial on Mr. Night Shyamalan which would have snatched an independent film of 2013 for its Apple TV + series Servant. This follows the rebirth of a copyright trial brought by writers Arthur Lee Alfred and Ezequiel Martinez Jr. alleging that Disney has raised their ideas for the first Caribbean pirates film, as well as an identical decision bringing back to life an author of The shape of the water. The court concluded in these two cases that they had been rejected prematurely, because reasonable minds could differ if the work is significantly similar.
