Question

Quentin Tarantino is a film director. In 2018, Quentin writes a script for a horror film called "The Rats". In the film, giant rats in New Zealand attack people. The rats grow bigger in size with the more people they eat. The film has scenes where the rats attack people at a beach, at university and in a major city. The film stars academy award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays the role of the hero scientist who fights the rats. Leonardo DiCaprio eventually destroys the rats by developing a virus which blinds them and makes them explode. In the end, Leonardo's son is killed by the rats. As the screen turns black, dark and dramatic music is played with sounds of rain drops. Quentin likes watching horror films. In 1995, he watched a film called "The Swarm" by Martin Scorsese. In "The Swarm", giant killer bees from South America attack people. The bees grow bigger in size with each sting. The film has scenes where the bees attack people at a school, a picnic and various major cities. The film stars academy award-winning actor Brad Pitt who plays the role of a hero scientist who fights the bees Brad eventually destroys the bees by developing a virus which causes them to sting each other and explode. In the end, Brad's wife is killed by the bees. As the screen turns black, dark and dramatic music is played with the sounds of a thunderstorm. In 2019, Quentin releases "The Rats" in cinemas, in accordance with the film script in 2018. Martin accuses Quentin of copyright infringement, but Quentin denies ever having seen "The Swarm" and claims he did not intend to copy it. Can Martin bring an action against Quentin for infringement of Martin's intellectual property rights in "The Swarm"?

Answer 1

ANSWER

As per the given question,

The issue - the issue here is that, a movie is released in 2018 named " The Rats" which seems to be a striking copy of a film named "The swamp" released in 1995. The maker of the swamp Martin believes that it is a violation of the copyright act, and his creation has been copied and released. However, Quentin states that he isn't aware of the existence of any such film.

The applicable law- The copyright Act of 1976

Applying the law to facts--this is a breach of the copyright Act as movie The Rats would be considered as a derivative work. Derivative work any piece of work which is based on one or more per existing works, in any form, in which a work has been transformed or adapted.

Conclusion-- Martin has every right to bring a lawsuit against Quentin, and demand damages and also portion of profit, accused earned by releasing the film.