Author Claims Disney Copied His Work for "Zootopia" - Sensationalist Headlines

[quote]Disney is now facing a serious lawsuit alleging that Oscar-winning animation film Zootopia was copied from the work of Gary L. Goldman, a reputable author whose distinguished credits includes writing Total Recall and Next and producing Minority Report. The complaint filed on Tuesday in California federal court comes from Esplanade Productions, Inc., which is being represented by the prominent law firm of Quinn Emanuel. It opens by quoting Zootopia director Byron Howard as saying, "Don’t worry if you feel like you’re copying something, because if it comes through you, it’s going to filter through you and you’re going to bring your own unique perspective to it." A Disney spokesperson responds, "Mr. Goldman’s lawsuit is riddled with patently false allegations. It is an unprincipled attempt to lay claim to a successful film he didn’t create, and we will vigorously defend against it in court.”[/quote] [url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/disney-hit-lawsuit-claiming-zootopia-ripped-total-recall-writer-987660]Hollywood Reporter[/url] [url=https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3521449-Zootopia.html]Said court document with claims can be viewed here[/url]

oh my [img]https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/zootopia-lawsuit-images.jpeg?w=600&h=600[/img] [editline]22nd March 2017[/editline] i'd like to see how they are similar beyond some similar characters, like story wise and shit.

If that's true then that's a real dick move on disneys part

Here're the possibilities: 1. They did not copy it (I'm inclined to belive that, despite everything) 2. "Fuck you, we're Disney". Either ways the guy won't see a penny.

[QUOTE=Pat.Lithium;51995359]oh my [img]https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/zootopia-lawsuit-images.jpeg?w=600&h=600[/img] [editline]22nd March 2017[/editline] i'd like to see how they are similar beyond some similar characters, like story wise and shit.[/QUOTE] Disney's desgins seem more inspired, which is sort of funny

[QUOTE=Sombrero;51995365]If that's true then that's a real dick move on disneys part[/QUOTE] Wouldnt be the first time Disney pinched ideas from somebody else but they've been pretty successful at battling legal claims against them for breach of copyright. Kimba the White Lion comes to mind, despite the fact that Osamu Tezuka's estate never did sue Disney, and Lion King went on to become one of the highest grossing movies ever made.

Trying to fight Disney legally is like an orphan trying to fight Mike Tyson.

Pretty much, they could blatantly have copied the characters almost 1:1 and he'd still lose simply because they are Disney. Disney doesn't even have to win, they just get to out-lawyer anyone stupid enough to take them on. They automatically have won any case against them before it has even begun solely because they have more money to pay more lawyers than anyone who tries to go up against them. It sucks, but he should probably drop the whole thing and forget it because he has nothing to gain and everything to lose.

adding because this story came across my feed (sorry it's from a literal zoot fansite/blag but they approached the facts neutrally instead of defensively, strange but nice). first half/bolded part explains how this kind of coincidence can actually be an unfortunate coincidence, where people end up assimilating memories from random things they've read in the past, but the highlight is just a [i]tad[/i] damning to the guy's case [quote][url]https://zootopianewsnetwork.tumblr.com/post/158692513714/breaking-news-disney-is-being-sued-over-zootopia[/url] [url]http://www.zootopianewsnetwork.com/2017/03/breaking-news-disney-is-being-sued-over.html[/url] the plaintiff, filmmaker Gary Goldman (Total Recall, Big Trouble in Little China, etc), is suing Walt Disney for the theft of his idea for a film called Zootopia. The initial brief, found [url=http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.documentcloud.org%2Fdocuments%2F3521449-Zootopia.html&t=NGU5NjgxYTA1MWE5YjU1ZmRkMzMxZDk2MzIyZDNhMDE2YTIwODg2NixIdllzWTJieA%3D%3D&b=t%3AHrPS8_73xT4LuqQOmChpRQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Fzootopianewsnetwork.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F158692513714%2Fbreaking-news-disney-is-being-sued-over-zootopia&m=1]here[/url], was rebuffed by Disney, claiming it was “riddled with false accusations”. [B]Essentially, Goldman claims that in 2000 and 2009 he pitched an idea for an anthropomorphic, “big city” film which dealt with overcoming prejudice and achieving personal goals through effort, featuring a small, female, prey protagonist, and a mid-sized, male, predator who “has no hope he can change or improve”. Sound familiar?[/B] Goldman actually presents a rather compelling case. The story and characters he presents are near identical to Disney’s Zootopia, even down to several lines of dialogue (pg. 18-19), only ever so slightly different. He essentially is arguing that Disney took his pitches and copied his film, which is entirely possible, and therefore, he deserves compensation. This is the same reason content creators can’t, say, read fanfiction, because if that creator goes on to produce more content, similar to the example fanfiction, the fanfic author could sue, just like Goldman is doing. -- The biggest issues with his claim, though, are one; Zootopia (our version) evolved constantly for nearly five years. Stuff changed, and certainly didn’t start out the way they ended. And two; that [highlight]the copyright for his property was filed, literally a month ago[/highlight] (paragraph 34), meaning he, theoretically, could have made the whole thing up. He has no solid proof as seen thus far. [/quote] sounds like a case of being a bad coincidence at best, to complete scam at likeliest. I've followed production of the movie over a long time inside and out, and it was a HUGE moving target before landing where it did plot-wise, and the claims sound like they're adjusted to sound like it's identical to the final movie product than any leading principals it was built on. Hell, Judy wasn't even supposed to be more than a supporting character til they reshuffled half the movie a few months before release lmao [editline]e[/editline] those character design lookalikes are also a huge tell that he likely had shit redrawn to line up to zootopia since half the characters are also breakneck changes in plot and direction that didn't come about til late in development [t]https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1dL8PVXq68Y/WNG1GAVUyuI/AAAAAAAACus/w348W7zjH9Mu4Yc3WrCp_EVWi_N4zyXigCLcB/s1600/Goldman%2BZootopia.PNG[/t] copyright-contesting "furry cartoonist who hasn't discovered what a furry is" art is my aesthetic. Judging by literally all of the designs it'd be an unlikeable cast pulled right out of rocko's modern life. God, the bear and the cheetah are above and beyond in terms of weird un-artistic edgy cartoon aesthetic [editline]e[/editline] holy shit is that doug [t]http://i.imgur.com/SbyYUY1.png[/t][img]http://www.facepunch.com/image.php?u=276444.png[/img]

If he really copyrighted it just a month ago then i fail to believe this guy

[QUOTE=darth-veger;51995616]If he really copyrighted it just a month ago then i fail to believe this guy[/QUOTE] Unless he produces evidence of it being a thing before the movie being made, fuck yeah. Hell, after it came out anyone could make up similar things.

Reminds me of that one time a guy tried to sue Dreamworks because they apperantly stole his idea for Kung Fu Panda, but it turned out that he made the thing up, intentionally removed evidence and tried to pass a drawing from a Disney coloring book from 1996 as his own. [IMG]http://www.cartoonbrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/kungfupanda_fbi_gordon_b.jpg[/IMG]

[QUOTE=dvc;51995381]Disney's desgins seem more inspired, which is sort of funny[/QUOTE] theyre some pretty generic stuff tbh

[QUOTE=Zang-Pog;51995586]This is kind of a shitty attitude to have and people thinking this way is only giving the ones with the most money even more power. Imagine if this is true and Disney did rip off somebody else. What happens if one day you're working on a thing and in strolls Disney or some other big company, stealing your idea and threatening to slap you into the dirt if you dare speak up against them[/QUOTE] Yeah. Imagine such a world where companies can do anything they want as long as they have enough money to "grease the wheels". Oh wait.

I love how the copy looks nothing alike and isn't even the same species in some cases

[QUOTE=J!NX;51995848]I love how the copy looks nothing alike and isn't even the same species in some cases[/QUOTE] It's not about it being the same species, it's about it being the same archetype Like, there are plenty of reasons to discount, or at least doubt, this guy's claims. But that really isn't one of them

I don't really see enough similarities tbh.

[QUOTE=megafat;51995413]Trying to fight Disney legally is like an orphan trying to fight Mike Tyson.[/QUOTE] Batman probably can do it :v:.

wasn't this like a year ago? I could have sworn someone already claimed zootopia was a ripoff of their work

[QUOTE=butre;51996424]wasn't this like a year ago? I could have sworn someone already claimed zootopia was a ripoff of their work[/QUOTE] the kung fu panda tracejob above was a year ago [t]http://i.imgur.com/FimuOu2.png[/t]

I know I've seen that gazelle before... [QUOTE] [IMG]http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/a/ac/Gazelle_Zootopia.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1031?cb=20151009223241[/IMG][/QUOTE] ...in Showgirls. [QUOTE][IMG]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8OeJyp4KDs0/VYNco14VMII/AAAAAAAAIuA/CSfaHXAVNUY/s1600/showgirls7.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=AntonioR;51996805]I know I've seen that gazelle before... ...in Showgirls.[/QUOTE] the great thing about gazelle is Shakira apparently spent a lot of time working back and forth with the team, being 'very involved' on her design It's literally her fursona

[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;51995860]It's not about it being the same species, it's about it being the same archetype Like, there are plenty of reasons to discount, or at least doubt, this guy's claims. But that really isn't one of them[/QUOTE] But they really... don't? And when they do (Hyena and Bear for example) they're pretty common archetypes, like "Tough Guy", "Cunning", "Sloth".

[QUOTE=Annoyed Grunt;51996902]But they really... don't? And when they do (Hyena and Bear for example) they're pretty common archetypes, like "Tough Guy", "Cunning", "Sloth".[/QUOTE] I'm not saying this gives any weight to the guy's claim, or that associating those traits with those animals is an original idea of his, or that all of the archetypes match up (which I thought would be 100% clear since I didn't, you know, say any of these things?). I'm just saying 'not the same species' is a silly argument that misses the point

[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;51996948]I'm not saying this gives any weight to the guy's claim, or that associating those traits with those animals is an original idea of his, or that all of the archetypes match up (which I thought would be 100% clear since I didn't, you know, say any of these things?). I'm just saying 'not the same species' is a silly argument that misses the point[/QUOTE] his argument comes down to describing zootopia oddly to the point. "small prey animal works with large predator to overcome prejudice in a big city environment", followed by the given example image showing characters side by side, shows raw visual similarity is his focus, though his characters look to have all the development of a garfield meets rocko's modern life special tbh the more I look at it the more I see just blatant attempts to jam some vague concepts into disney's shapes, the oddest being the [is that still an armadillo] having an identical head to the disney character despite everything else looking like it was drawn by an early 90's cartoonist. Realistically there's a chance a portion of these drawings (hyena, bear, cheetah, antelope, maaaaaybe the koala but he just looks like a rip of brain the mouse) are legitimately from some pitches he threw around in the late 90's to 2000 and those are legit old drawings, but this is such a super late attempt at a case for how oddly convenient it lines up. Why would he have taken til a [i]month[/i] ago to file copyrights on stuff given the movie was known for years prior and released to huge praise a full year prior to his registrations [editline]e[/editline] playing devil's advocate, let's say he [I]did [/I]pitch 'small prey/large pred tackle prejudice in the big city'; by the evidence presented I can't imagine anything put forth was above "commercial break PSA on nickelodeon", I'm just not feelin' it at all

[QUOTE=dai;51997235]his argument comes down to describing zootopia oddly to the point. "small prey animal works with large predator to overcome prejudice in a big city environment", followed by the given example image showing characters side by side, shows raw visual similarity is his focus, though his characters look to have all the development of a garfield meets rocko's modern life special tbh the more I look at it the more I see just blatant attempts to jam some vague concepts into disney's shapes, the oddest being the [is that still an armadillo] having an identical head to the disney character despite everything else looking like it was drawn by an early 90's cartoonist. Realistically there's a chance a portion of these drawings (hyena, bear, cheetah, antelope, maaaaaybe the koala but he just looks like a rip of brain the mouse) are legitimately from some pitches he threw around in the late 90's to 2000 and those are legit old drawings, but this is such a super late attempt at a case for how oddly convenient it lines up. Why would he have taken til a [i]month[/i] ago to file copyrights on stuff given the movie was known for years prior and released to huge praise a full year prior to his registrations[/QUOTE] I believe the not-armadillo thing is supposed to be some kind of horrendous anteater kangaroo thing

[QUOTE=Makzu;51995686]Reminds me of that one time a guy tried to sue Dreamworks because they apperantly stole his idea for Kung Fu Panda, but it turned out that he made the thing up, intentionally removed evidence and tried to pass a drawing from a Disney coloring book from 1996 as his own. [IMG]http://www.cartoonbrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/kungfupanda_fbi_gordon_b.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] Or that's just what Disney wants you to think... :conspiratard:

[QUOTE=butre;51997300]I believe the not-armadillo thing is supposed to be some kind of horrendous anteater kangaroo thing[/QUOTE] imagine if he mistook the anteater for a kangaroo just wearing a weird heavy shawl and traced her under that presumption, and that ends up being what outs the scheme

A bump, but a relevant one, a copyright lawyers explanation of the matter [video=youtube;TfejTEfMBtc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfejTEfMBtc[/video] he's pretty good at explaining things that non-lawyers wouldn't really understand so it's definitely informative

[QUOTE=J!NX;52038175]A bump, but a relevant one, a copyright lawyers explanation of the matter [video=youtube;TfejTEfMBtc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfejTEfMBtc[/video] he's pretty good at explaining things that non-lawyers wouldn't really understand so it's definitely informative[/QUOTE] going over that complaint, it seems like other than a few one-off things like the direct quotes or the one animal owning a club (and the name, but come on it's a pun), it's just tropes that have this guy's case hold water.