ABSTRACT
When Arthur L Alfred, II and his co-Plaintiffs sued Disney for copyright infringement for Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, the parties represented a modern-day David and Goliath. Disney is Goliath, with its ownership of big-name companies, such as Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar. The Mickey Mouse has certainly made its own name in copyright law. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision in Alfred v Walt Disney, while consistent with past case law, provides underdogs, such as the Plaintiffs, with surer footing when entering the pleading stage of copyright infringement cases. Further, the Ninth Circuit correctly held that the lower court erred when it did not compare the Plaintiff’s screenplay to Disney’s copied final product. Plaintiffs had, in fact, sufficiently alleged substantial similarities to survive a motion to dismiss.
Alexa Buechler, It’s a Pirate’s Life for Me: Stealing Scripts Instead of Jewels, 22 UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law 112 (2022).
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