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18 August 2014Copyright

Angelina Jolie copyright case returns

Actress and director Angelina Jolie could be heading back to court after a lawsuit in which one of her films was accused of copying an author’s work has resurfaced.

In court documents filed at the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Croatian author James Braddock (Josip Knezevic) has demanded a retrial after criticising an earlier ruling for making “a number of material errors”.

The case relates to Braddock’s novel, The Soul Shattering (Slamanje Duce), an account of a women’s love affair during the war in Bosnia.

He claims the work was copied by Jolie in her 2011 directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, which also focuses on a love story during the same war.

Jolie successfully defended those claims at the US District Court for the Central of California last year.

But, according to entertainment news site Radar Online, which has obtained court documents last week, Braddock has hit back and accused the district court of ignoring key elements.

Braddock claimed that as the book was not properly translated from Croatian into English it could not be determined whether the film had actually infringed his book or not.

In the original filing in 2011, Braddock also claimed that one of Jolie’s film’s producers said in an interview that the book was discussed before making the film.

The complaint states: “The [district] court ignored the fact that the action of the film and the novel begin identically with the same description, that the characters are identical…

“The decision noted a number of material errors, starting with clear descriptions that are interpreted or translated incorrectly, to the downgrading of a complex of the work,” it added.

In that lawsuit, filed after the film’s release in 2011, Braddock claimed Jolie never obtained the rights from him to adapt his book.

The appeal against the decision in Jolie’s favour, which was filed earlier this year despite the court documents only being uncovered now, calls for a retrial or an annulment of the ruling.

Jolie, who has previously denied the allegations, has not responded to the new claims.

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