Wednesday, April 11, 2007 China Chinese Writer Sues US Movie Giant over Copyright Infringement A Chinese science fiction writer on Wednesday took U.S. movie giant 20th Century Fox Film Corporation to court over allegations of copyright infringement. The Intermediate People's Court of Dongying, in east China's Shandong Province, began hearing the case on Wednesday. The writer, 43-year-old Li Jianmin, said 20th Century Fox's movie The Day After Tomorrow copied the creative concept and the plots of two plays he completed in 2001 and 2002. Li said The Day After Tomorrow, the blockbuster movie in which much of the world is destroyed by disasters caused by global warming, has 308 scenes that were described in his plays. In March last year, Li lodged the lawsuit against 20th Century Fox, director of the movie Roland Emmerich and five Chinese companies that imported, distributed and showed the movie. The court accepted the suit last April. Li, who is making no claim for compensation, said he just wanted to be respected for his work. He has requested the court to acknowledge copyright infringement by defendants and that they pay all the legal costs. Yang Jun, lawyer for 20th Century Fox, told the court that some scenes were similar to Li's plays in that descriptions of floods, storms and glaciers are usually alike, and "any writer may create such scenes". She denied the US Company had infringed on Li's copyright. It is not known, if the accusation were true, how 20th Century Fox obtained the plays of Li Jianmin, who said he showed one of the plays to friends after it was finished in October 2001 and brought both plays to Beijing in November 2002 for a contest. Li admitted he had no proof that the US company had access to his plays. The move comes in the same week that the U.S. moved to file a case at the World Trade Organisation against China over intellectual property rights. A dispute over copyright violation also came to a head this week with Chinese Internet service provider Sohu.com accusing U.S.-based Google of infringing aspects of its pinyin-inputting software. credits: crienglish, asianfanatics.
lolz i could've predicted the stuff in The Day after tomorrow except that giant hurricane ... meh that was an interesting movie... to bad they copied it from someone else
I don't know much about this author, but it's true that many parts of the plot is like brainless "disaster film formula" type, so I doubt this lawsuit will go anywhere...
I personally think ... this is too general it won't have basis to sue the US script writer... anybody can write about that.. i wrote and essay just like that when i'm in secondary school so can i sue him?
