‘Inside Out’ copyright case rumbles on with opposition against Disney
A child development expert has opposed an attempt by Disney and Pixar to have a court dismiss a copyright case that she filed against the companies.
Denise Daniels alleged that her idea for a children’s TV programme called “The Moodsters” was copied in the 2015 animation film “Inside Out”.
She filed an amended complaint in September claiming that Disney and Pixar had misappropriated the central concept and characters behind the movie.
In the latest filing (pdf) made on December 22 at the US District Court for the Central District of California, Daniels’ legal representatives at Robins Kaplan said the defendants’ motion to dismiss the amended complaint should be denied and a trial be granted.
The filing said that Disney’s desire to offer more than 200 exhibits to support its motion to dismiss confirms the need for the case to proceed on the merits.
It added that some documents were inauthentic and amounted to hearsay, while others were illegible printouts from the internet.
Daniels, through Moodsters Company, registered the pilot episode of “The Moodsters” with the US Copyright Office in July 2007.
The Moodsters live “deep down inside every child” and feature five main characters, each representing a single emotion: happiness (yellow), sadness (blue), anger (red), fear (green), and love (pink).
According to the claim, between 2005 and 2009, Daniels held several discussions with Disney executives about developing an animated series focused on emotional intelligence in children.
Daniels, who has previously worked with children affected by natural disasters and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, also claimed that she explained the characters, curriculum and concept underlying “The Moodsters” to the director of “Inside Out”.
“Pixar began work on ‘Inside Out’ in 2010, the year following Daniels’ last discussions with the studios,” the amended complaint said.
Along with the opposition, Daniels’ team filed a memorandum of law (pdf), which accused Disney of accepting praise for the inventive, unique and original presentation of anthropomorphised single-emotion characters in “Inside Out”.
“Disney’s attempts to defend this lawsuit by trivialising the original expressions that it copied from ‘The Moodsters’ characters ring hollow as a result,” it added.
Daniels made further allegations that Disney’s argument that animated characters are protected only under “exceptional circumstances” is wrong and inconsistent with the company’s past representations.
“Inside Out”, released in 2015, had box office revenues of $857.6 million.
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