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Author Sues Disney for $250 Million Claiming “Frozen” is Based on Her Life
If you’ve believed that motion pictures like “Aladdin,” “The Lion King,” and “The Little Mermaid” were fictitious, which seems plausible since they’re, well, animated and also contain imaginary characters, then you may be sadly mistaken. According to a federal court complaint, Isabella Tanikumi, whose pseudonym is L. Amy Gonzales, has sued the Walt Disney Company for a whopping $250 million because Tanikumi believes that Disney plagiarized her life story in order to make its most successful animated film of all time, “Frozen.”
Tanikumi alleges that Disney took her life story from her autobiography, “Living My Truth.” Tanikumi claims that “Frozen” plagiarizes “Living My Truth” in 18 ways, including its plot, characters, and story. According to Fox News, the most interesting claims are that “Frozen” and “Living My Truth” both take place in the snow-covered mountains; the sisters’ Elsa and Anna in the movie have different colored hair, own horses, and love each other just like Isabella, the main character in the autobiography, and her sister; Isabella’s two love interests in the book are Hans and Christof, just like Anna’s romantic interests are Hans and Kristoff in “Frozen;” and Elsa’s sister, Anna, dies in an accident just like Isabella’s sister.
Moreover, Fox News reports that Tanikumi alleges that the movie’s now-famous soundtrack is plagiarized too because songwriters and the movie writers took portions of her life story to develop it.
When I think of Tanikumi’s lawsuit, the case that comes to mind is Nichols v. Universal Pictures. In that case, an author who wrote a play entitled “Abie’s Irish Rose” — which was about a young Jewish man who marries an Irish Catholic girl against the wishes of both of their fathers — alleged that the producers of “The Cohens and Kellys” — which was about a young Catholic man who marries a Jewish girl against their fathers’ wishes — infringed the play’s copyright. The doctrine that came out of Nichols is called “scenes a faire,” which is a French term meaning “a scene that must be made,” and refers to scenes and elements in a book or film that are obligatory for a genre. For example, westerns have protagonists who have guns, holsters, and ride horses, as well as an obligatory scene where the protagonist has a showdown with the antagonist, which are uncopyrightable because authors need those elements and scenes to create other western films and stories. The Nichols court said that as long as “The Cohens and Kellys” took “scenes a faire,” then they didn’t infringe the copyright of “Abie’s Irish Rose.”
In Tanikumi’s case, Disney may point to the “scenes a faire” doctrine of its coming-of-age tale to refute the writer’s claims. However, it is more likely that Disney will argue that Tanikumi has a “failure to state a claim,” which means that Tanikumi has no case because her life story is not “substantially similar” to “Frozen,” which is an element needed to prove copyright infringement.
I will be surprised to see if this case moves very far, but nevertheless, I will be eagerly watching to see the next development.
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Joseph Perry (@jperry325) is a 3L at St. John’s University whose goal is to become a publishing and media law attorney. He has interned at William Morris Endeavor, Rodale, Inc., Columbia University Press, and is currently interning at Hachette Book Group and volunteering at the Media Law Resource Center, which has given him insight into the legal aspects of the publishing and media industries.
Featured Image Courtesy of [Dawn Ashley via Flickr]
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