Vancouver man sues Avatar’s James Cameron for copyright violation

By Jordana Divon | DailyBrew

After its 2009 release, Avatar became the highest grossing movie of all time in North America and surpassed the $2-billion mark at the international box office.

At the time, director James Cameron said hed been developing the idea for the film since 1994, but had delayed production for over a decade until he felt the technology was sufficiently advanced to capture his vision.


Avatar —Twentieth Century Fox

But Vancouver restaurateur and amateur screenwriter Emil Malak is challenging Camerons authorship, telling CTVs Canada AM that the Academy Award-winning director “borrowed” concepts from a screenplay Malak sent him over a decade ago.

As he related to host Marci Ien, Malak learned the director was in Vancouver filming television series Dark Angel back in 2000. Taking advantage of the directors presence in town, Malak dropped off a copy of his script a film called Terra Incognita he wrote in 1997 to one of Camerons producers. No one ever responded.

Nearly 10 years later, Malak received a call about his script, but it wasnt from the person hed hoped.

“I never heard until 2009 when my colour graphic designer called me and said hes taken all your building blocks on the story and the characters and the graphics. I went to the Internet to look and I was quite surprised,” he told host Marci Ien.

Malak claims Cameron copied dozens of his ideas everything from character names and physical characteristics to the idea for a “mineral-rich blue planet” and “mystical tree of life” are alleged to have been taken straight from Malaks original work.

He says he contacted 20th Century Fox to explain the issue and they agreed to a meeting on their terms.

“They did not want to discuss the similarities and the comparison they wanted to discuss just the dates. I registered mine with the Writers Guild of Canada 10 times to make sure it was protected between 1998 and 2003, and they said Well. James Cameron wrote his in 1996, you lose,” he said.

Studio lawyers agreed to send Malak an image of several pages from Camerons Avatar screenplay so that Malak could verify the dates. They said Cameron had written the script on his personal computer.

“I had some computer experts check it and they said no way it was done in 1996 so weve been here a year-and-a-half dancing with 20th Century Fox asking for the original file and we havent received it yet,” he said.

Earlier this month, Malak went to the Federal Court of Canada to demand that Cameron provide the original file he claims to have written in 1996.

Malak said he would drop the lawsuit if Cameron could prove his screenplay predates Terra Incognita.

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Read the full article at: ca.news.yahoo.com

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