$250m copyright claim melts away after Disney suit thrown out

Disney has survived a $250 million payout after the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit threw out author Isabella Tanikumi’s claim that the film “Frozen”infringed her copyright.

On Tuesday, September 29, the third circuit reaffirmed a judgment from the US District Court for the District of New Jersey that the 2013 film was not infringing.

At the centre of the dispute is Tanikumi’s memoir titled “ Yearnings of the Heart”. The book, published in 2011, focuses on Tanikumi’s family struggles in the Peruvian Andes.

Tanikumi claimed that the Disney film infringed her copyright and filed a lawsuit at the New Jersey district court in September 2014.

She claimed that there were 18 instances of “characters, plots, sub-plots and the storyline” lifted by Disney from her work.

For example, she claimed the settings of “snow-covered mountains” were too similar and that both her work and Disney’s film centre around two sisters with opposite coloured hair.

The district court had granted Disney’s motion to dismiss the case in February 2015.

Tanikumi appealed against the district court’s dismissal, arguing that the court erred by comparing the works at the pleadings stage.

However, the three appeals judges presiding over the case were not convinced by her argument. First, they said, in determining the similarity of two works a district court judge does not need to assess the factual questions and therefore can compare the works at the pleadings stage.

Second, they said, Tanikumi failed to complain about any “legally recognised similarities” between both works.

The judges said: “The similarities that ‘Yearnings of the Heart’ and ‘Frozen’ share pertain only to generic plot and theme ideas, not protectable expressions.

“While both works feature a mountain setting, an intense sisterly bond, an untrue lover, and a resolution in which the female protagonist comes into her own without the help of a man, copyright law does not protect such common topics in autobiographical literature and film,” they concluded.