Friday, June 27, 2008 The Rocky IV copyright infringement case By Clint Fabiosa & Andrew Ong I.Protect
IN 1982, after viewing the movie Rocky III, Timothy Burton Anderson wrote a script for Rocky IV and met with the movie’s producers to discuss the use of his script for Rocky IV.
Anderson claimed that MGM told him that if they used his script he would be paid a large sum of money. Anderson also met with Sylvester Stallone in 1983 and showed him his script. When Rocky IV was shown, Anderson was neither given any credit for his script nor the cash promised to him. He then filed a case for copyright infringement, unfair competition, unjust enrichment, and breach of confidence against Stallone, MGM and other parties.
The United States court ruled in favor of Stallone and MGM. According to the Court, Anderson’s script is an infringing work not entitled to copyright protection. It was strikingly clear to the court that Anderson’s work was a derivate work; that under US laws, derivate works are the exclusive privilege of the copyright holder (Stallone, in this case); and that since Anderson’s work is unauthorized, no part of it can be given protection.
The Court determined that the characters from the original movies were afforded copyright protection, using a standard borrowed from a prior case. The key to the standard is that copyright protection is afforded when a character is developed with enough specificity to constitute protectable expression. (Anderson vs. Stallone, 11 USPQ2D 1161 [C.D. Cal. 1989]).
