Mowry v Viacom

William Patry recommends a copyright decision issued by judge Andrew Peck last week, Mowry v Viacom. Mowry complained that the Jim Carey film, "The Truman Show", infringed the copyright in his unpublished script. If you're into legalese it's certainly a clear, thoughful, thorough and sensible ruling. Given the amount of copyright litigation (including volumes of threatening cesae and desist letters) that goes on these days, what's interesting is the judge's clear exposition of the burden of proof on the plaintiff, which is higher than critics of copyright laws might have been led to expect.

For example, in respect of proving the alledged infringer's access to the infringed work, in the US "Access means that an alledged infringer had a 'reasonable possibility' - not simply a 'bear possibility' - of hearing [or seeing] the prior work; access cannot be based on mere 'speculation or conjecture.'" He goes on to explain what this means in real terms in relation to the relevant precedents.

There's even a bit of humour, in relation to the expert witness evidence Mowry used to demonstrate the similarity of the scripts:

"Mowry points to no case in which an expert using cladistic or phylogenetic tree analysis has been used to show striking similarity (or even substantial similarity) between literary works, and the Court's research has found no such cases. While it is true that there must be a first time for an expert methodology to be accepted by the courts, this is not the case."

No, I don't know what "cladistic or phylogenetic tree analysis" is either but full marks to Mowry for trying and to the judge for a clear, sensible decision. Sometimes the little guy loses for the right reasons.