Who Can I Sue?
It never fails. You make a movie that’s worth tons of money and someone else wants to cash in
http://forum.bcdb.com/gforum.cgi?post=39943
--------------------------------------
Scuba-diving dentist Dennis G. Sternberg has filed a lawsuit against Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, charging that they stole his idea for the 2003 animated blockbuster Finding Nemo. Sternberg, 56, of Allenhurst, New Jersey filed the suit this week in U.S. District Court in Newark. He claimed that he used his experiences as a certified diver to create "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish," an underwater adventure story for children, in 1991. The amphibious dentist stated that he sent an illustrated manuscript to Disney and talked on the phone at great length with a writer from Pixar about his story. Pixar has a distribution partnership with the Mouse House. Sternberg was told by a Disney vice-president in 1996 that the story had "great potential," but that it didn't fit into the studio's "development slate" at the time, the suit said. He smelled something fishy seven years later when he was in a movie house and saw a preview for an upcoming attraction: Finding Nemo. "I thought, 'Hey, I'm the scuba-diving dentist. Those are my characters, that's my story.' It made me sick to my stomach,'' he told The Star-Ledger for Wednesday's editions. Reached by the newspaper Tuesday, neither Disney nor Pixar would comment.
-----------------------------------
OK, so let’s pretend like this story is legitimate. If it’s true, this Sternberg fella will have to face off against Disney and Pixar at a time when Disney ain’t lookin’ so good. And for the record, I watched the trailers for “Finding Nemo” a million times when they came out. Not once did they mention anything about Nemo being kidnapped by a dentist, specifically.
-----------------------------------
Finding Nemo recounts how young clownfish Nemo is caught by a scuba diver and arrives in a fish tank in a dentist's office. After Nemo's father searches the ocean for him, Nemo escapes from the dentist's tank and, in time, is reunited with his father. The New Jersey dentist's story even had a character named "Nimo." Sternberg's suit alleges a violation of federal copyright laws, as well as fraud and misrepresentation, breach of contract, unjust enrichment and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. The companies "have intentionally, knowingly, illicitly and slavishly copied plaintiff's protected works in whole or in substantial part," the suit contends.
-----------------------------------
Sternberg is also going to have to prove that Andrew Stanton, the writer and director of “Finding Nemo” who goes to my church, didn’t come up with the story himself. From the story that I got, Stanton pitched the story to Pixar years later, after a story like this would most likely be forgotten. Andrew’s story was that he was Marlin, the over-concerned father, and his son Ben was Nemo, the boy fish who looks like he’s going to get in trouble. Stanton thought this story up one day when he was walking with his son and he noticed that he was getting worried every time Ben looked like he was going to walk into the least bit of trouble. Then he thought it would make a great story and fleshed it out into a plot with imaginary characters…years after 1996.
Now I’m not saying that Sternberg doesn’t have a case. I am saying though that Stanton is not the kind of person who would, to my knowledge, rip someone else’s story off. Indeed, there are similarities, but there’s not enough for me to say that it’s a rip-off. I saw the comparison between “The Lion King” and “Kimba, the White Lion.” That’s an obvious rip-off right there. This looks like just a case of a lot of the same story elements that many stories have.
------------------------------------
The lawsuit also asks the court to void a two-page waiver that Disney compelled Sternberg to sign before submitting his manuscript. The waiver said that he would be entitled to just $500 if he claimed that Disney used his material without permission or authorization. "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish" tells of "two worlds coming together -- above and below the sea, with unusual sea creatures such as hatchet fish, creatures with large eyes, and other exaggerated features, undersea turtles and their travels on the undersea Gulf Stream currents," the lawsuit says. For a long time, the lawsuit states, Sternberg was personally acquainted with a woman who was an executive secretary at ABC Capitol Cities, a Disney company. The suit adds that he sent a copy of his manuscript to the secretary, who encouraged him to send Disney another copy. That second copy, the suit alleges, reached Barry Blumberg, an executive vice-president of TV animation at Disney. Stern says that Blumberg called him at his home in November 1996 to discuss the story. During that phone call, Blumberg told him, "We all love 'Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish' and the entire concept," the lawsuit said. Blumberg's office, the suit said, connected Sternberg in touch with Pixar employee Andrew Stanton. Sternberg told Stanton that he envisioned "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish" surfacing during the story and finding his way by using the Statue of Liberty.
The title character of Finding Nemo, by comparison, surfaces and gets his bearings upon seeing the Sydney Opera House.
-----------------------------------
This is where things get real interesting. However, did Sternberg come up with that kind of plot point himself for an animated movie? Does the quote “past the rock that looks like a longneck” sound familiar to anyone?
-----------------------------------
That's just one way, according to the lawsuit, in which "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish" is "substantially similar to the expression, premise and storyline of Finding Nemo."
-----------------------------------
And I’m sure Sternberg forgot to mention that the rest of the similarities were various other movie clichés.
-----------------------------------
Stanton was the director and story writer of Finding Nemo, as well as one of the film's three screenwriters who were nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay. "The thing that makes this so different from other similar situations is the amount of contact between Dr. Sternberg and the studios,'' said William T. Hill, Sternberg's lawyer. "There was a vice-president from Disney on the phone with this guy. Vice-presidents from Disney don't contact just any old Joe Schmoe off the street.''
-----------------------------------
You know, I wish Andrew would show up at church more often. He’d probably be able to rip this one to shreds if I passed it to him. On the other hand, it’s crap like that that make people like Andrew not want to go out in public.
http://forum.bcdb.com/gforum.cgi?post=39943
--------------------------------------
Scuba-diving dentist Dennis G. Sternberg has filed a lawsuit against Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, charging that they stole his idea for the 2003 animated blockbuster Finding Nemo. Sternberg, 56, of Allenhurst, New Jersey filed the suit this week in U.S. District Court in Newark. He claimed that he used his experiences as a certified diver to create "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish," an underwater adventure story for children, in 1991. The amphibious dentist stated that he sent an illustrated manuscript to Disney and talked on the phone at great length with a writer from Pixar about his story. Pixar has a distribution partnership with the Mouse House. Sternberg was told by a Disney vice-president in 1996 that the story had "great potential," but that it didn't fit into the studio's "development slate" at the time, the suit said. He smelled something fishy seven years later when he was in a movie house and saw a preview for an upcoming attraction: Finding Nemo. "I thought, 'Hey, I'm the scuba-diving dentist. Those are my characters, that's my story.' It made me sick to my stomach,'' he told The Star-Ledger for Wednesday's editions. Reached by the newspaper Tuesday, neither Disney nor Pixar would comment.
-----------------------------------
OK, so let’s pretend like this story is legitimate. If it’s true, this Sternberg fella will have to face off against Disney and Pixar at a time when Disney ain’t lookin’ so good. And for the record, I watched the trailers for “Finding Nemo” a million times when they came out. Not once did they mention anything about Nemo being kidnapped by a dentist, specifically.
-----------------------------------
Finding Nemo recounts how young clownfish Nemo is caught by a scuba diver and arrives in a fish tank in a dentist's office. After Nemo's father searches the ocean for him, Nemo escapes from the dentist's tank and, in time, is reunited with his father. The New Jersey dentist's story even had a character named "Nimo." Sternberg's suit alleges a violation of federal copyright laws, as well as fraud and misrepresentation, breach of contract, unjust enrichment and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. The companies "have intentionally, knowingly, illicitly and slavishly copied plaintiff's protected works in whole or in substantial part," the suit contends.
-----------------------------------
Sternberg is also going to have to prove that Andrew Stanton, the writer and director of “Finding Nemo” who goes to my church, didn’t come up with the story himself. From the story that I got, Stanton pitched the story to Pixar years later, after a story like this would most likely be forgotten. Andrew’s story was that he was Marlin, the over-concerned father, and his son Ben was Nemo, the boy fish who looks like he’s going to get in trouble. Stanton thought this story up one day when he was walking with his son and he noticed that he was getting worried every time Ben looked like he was going to walk into the least bit of trouble. Then he thought it would make a great story and fleshed it out into a plot with imaginary characters…years after 1996.
Now I’m not saying that Sternberg doesn’t have a case. I am saying though that Stanton is not the kind of person who would, to my knowledge, rip someone else’s story off. Indeed, there are similarities, but there’s not enough for me to say that it’s a rip-off. I saw the comparison between “The Lion King” and “Kimba, the White Lion.” That’s an obvious rip-off right there. This looks like just a case of a lot of the same story elements that many stories have.
------------------------------------
The lawsuit also asks the court to void a two-page waiver that Disney compelled Sternberg to sign before submitting his manuscript. The waiver said that he would be entitled to just $500 if he claimed that Disney used his material without permission or authorization. "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish" tells of "two worlds coming together -- above and below the sea, with unusual sea creatures such as hatchet fish, creatures with large eyes, and other exaggerated features, undersea turtles and their travels on the undersea Gulf Stream currents," the lawsuit says. For a long time, the lawsuit states, Sternberg was personally acquainted with a woman who was an executive secretary at ABC Capitol Cities, a Disney company. The suit adds that he sent a copy of his manuscript to the secretary, who encouraged him to send Disney another copy. That second copy, the suit alleges, reached Barry Blumberg, an executive vice-president of TV animation at Disney. Stern says that Blumberg called him at his home in November 1996 to discuss the story. During that phone call, Blumberg told him, "We all love 'Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish' and the entire concept," the lawsuit said. Blumberg's office, the suit said, connected Sternberg in touch with Pixar employee Andrew Stanton. Sternberg told Stanton that he envisioned "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish" surfacing during the story and finding his way by using the Statue of Liberty.
The title character of Finding Nemo, by comparison, surfaces and gets his bearings upon seeing the Sydney Opera House.
-----------------------------------
This is where things get real interesting. However, did Sternberg come up with that kind of plot point himself for an animated movie? Does the quote “past the rock that looks like a longneck” sound familiar to anyone?
-----------------------------------
That's just one way, according to the lawsuit, in which "Peanut Butter the Jelly Fish" is "substantially similar to the expression, premise and storyline of Finding Nemo."
-----------------------------------
And I’m sure Sternberg forgot to mention that the rest of the similarities were various other movie clichés.
-----------------------------------
Stanton was the director and story writer of Finding Nemo, as well as one of the film's three screenwriters who were nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay. "The thing that makes this so different from other similar situations is the amount of contact between Dr. Sternberg and the studios,'' said William T. Hill, Sternberg's lawyer. "There was a vice-president from Disney on the phone with this guy. Vice-presidents from Disney don't contact just any old Joe Schmoe off the street.''
-----------------------------------
You know, I wish Andrew would show up at church more often. He’d probably be able to rip this one to shreds if I passed it to him. On the other hand, it’s crap like that that make people like Andrew not want to go out in public.
posted by Jaimetud at 9:45 AM
1 Comments:
I'm anon...for now. What Dennis also forgot to mention is that he did not write PBJF by himself. I wrote it with him, based in part on a story I wrote while in college doing my m.f.a. in the late 1970's. It was called TELL ME OF THE WHALES and was about a baby sperm whale who gets separated from his pod and roams the oceans looking for his family, meeting up with a giant sea turtle, sharks, and other sea creatures both large and small. He sought me out..I had already published several children's books, and a mutual friend put us together. Anyway, I wrote the story with him until our creative differences made any further collaboration impossible. So while we parted ways, we did not contractually. There is a signed agreement between him and me that has been valid from when we signed it back in 1991 'until the end of the world.' He at one time, tried to literally force me to sign a release but I refused. Let's leave it at that...again, for now.
Post a Comment
<< Home