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  • SUNDAY DECEMBER 5 2004 10:05 PM

Makers of "Matrix" and "Terminator" sued for copyright infringment, and lost!

Submitted by Motionboy

Edited by Sean

It seems the Wachowski bros couldnt come up for the crap storyline of matrix by themselves!

"Monday, October 4th 2004 ended a six-year dispute involving Sophia Stewart, the Wachowski Brothers, Joel Silver and Warner Brothers. Stewart's allegations, involving copyright infringement and racketeering, were received and acknowledged by the Central District of California, Judge Margaret Morrow residing.

Stewart, a New Yorker who has resided in Salt Lake City for the past five years, will recover damages from the films, The Matrix I, II and III, as well as The Terminator and its sequels. She will soon receive one of the biggest payoffs in the history of Hollywood, as the gross receipts of both films and their sequels total over 2.5 billion dollars.

Stewart filed her case in 1999, after viewing the Matrix, which she felt had been based on her manuscript, "The Third Eye," copyrighted in 1981. In the mid-eighties Stewart had submitted her manuscript to an ad placed by the Wachowski Brothers, requesting new sci-fi works.

According to court documentation, an FBI investigation discovered that more than thirty minutes had been edited from the original film, in attempt to avoid penalties for copyright infringement. The investigation also stated that "credible witnesses employed at Warner Brothers came forward, claiming that the executives and lawyers had full knowledge that the work in question did not belong to the Wachowski Brothers." These witnesses claimed to have seen Stewart's original work and that it had been "often used during preparation of the motion pictures."
The defendants tried, on several occasions, to have Stewart's case dismissed, without success."

full story here:

http://www.slccglobelink.com/main.c...yid/785067.html

 

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Comments
PointBlank

PointBlank

New York, NY
November 2004

DEC 07, 2004 09:04 AM

hermetica said:

Hmm.. and tell me that every mythological battle in every culture in every society on this planet isnt a race war of some sort. 'Chosen people vs. Heathens' , Gods vs Titans, etc etc. Besides, he didnt just draw on only Scandinavian sources. There are all sorts of different mythologies woven into his books. Besides which, if you study world religions , mythology and ancient civilisations enough, you notice that they all borrow from each other (or to be more exact, all the cultures that had any sort of contact with each other) .
And again I say.. unless you can achieve the same kind of literary feat as Tolkien, I suggest you refrain from criticism.


So all criticism is invalid? Just because the critic hasn't achieved the same "literary feat"? So, if someone were to say that LOTR is the greatest literary achievement of the 20th Century, his opinion should be invalid as well, since he hasn't accomplished the same "literary feat"...Positive criticism is still criticism.

The fact is, Tolkien stole/was influenced by a lot of Wagner's Ring Cycle. This isn't a dis on Tolkien(personally, i think they're pretty good books), but to say that they are the most important literary achievement of the past 100 years is wayyy overblown and silly.

baudot

baudot

United Kingdom
February 2004

DEC 07, 2004 11:41 AM

From Neil Gaiman's blog:

Actually, what I got out of that article was that the Salt Lake City Globe are extremely lazy people who print press releases, and that all that has happened is that a judge has said yes, the plaintiff's case can go to trial. Nobody's won it, and that I certainly wouldn't put any money on the plaintiff winning it. (At the point where the plaintiff announces that she's not just getting a cut of all the Matrix movies, but of the Terminator films as well, that she --

will recover damages from the films, The Matrix I, II and III, as well as The Terminator and its sequels. She will soon receive one of the biggest payoffs in the history of Hollywood, as the gross receipts of both films and their sequels total over 2.5 billion dollars

-- my loony detector alarms started going off and I began to read a bit more closely, and the case started looking more and more like the mad muggles lady who sued J. K. Rowling for plagiarism, another case that went to trial and stopped right there.)

Remember that while Hollywood people are often ethically challenged, they aren't stupid. It's normally easier to buy something than it is to steal it.

Ah well, if she has a case, best of luck to her.

baudot

baudot

United Kingdom
February 2004

DEC 07, 2004 12:03 PM

Gaimain also wrote a spot of his own fiction in the Matrix universe.

[Edited on Dec 07, 2004 by baudot]

fallen1carus

fallen1carus

Portland, OR
OLD SKOOL

DEC 07, 2004 01:47 PM

Turin said:

cthav said:

I never even bothered to watch the last one.



why not? it was good.



eeek surreal whoa. no.

Ahriman

Ahriman

North York, ON
February 2003

DEC 07, 2004 02:39 PM

I liked the first matrix movie(as did most people at the time). Honestly I thought that second movie was pretty good too. It obviously didn't hold up to the ridicously high expectations that people had placed on it, but it was a well conceived movie nonetheless. It didn't have the same sense of urgency or peril that the first matrix had, but urgency is in general a hard feat to accomplish during the middle section of a movie triliogy. It had plot development, as much character development as you could get with Keanu Reeves and Carrie Anne Moss in the lead roles, and had some very cool fight scenes and dialogue.

The third matrix movie...I liked the first ten minutes or so. It was at that point the whole movie series just seemed to unravel. It was as if they tried to condense another three movies worth of material into one movie. Everything except for graphics suffered(what happened to the character arc of Morpheus I'd like to know).

The series wasn't as bad as some people want to make it to be. And some(but most assuredly not all) do this because of the kind of let down it was.

I don't see that it was horrible, but at the same not time, anyone who says it's one of the seminal films of our generations needs to see some of the films of our generation first.

[edited for sense making stuff]

[Edited on Dec 07, 2004 by Ahriman]

wishicould

wishicould

Portland, OR
August 2003

DEC 07, 2004 07:53 PM

I think we all need to re-examine this...I think the article is a glich in the matrix. Designed to draw our attention away from the machines (aol-timewarner). A well crafted ruse, if you will. To make us argue about the rehashing of sci-fi/ fantasy works into movies. While they continue to take over our lives one forecasted vote at a time.

I think some of the better works of fiction are those that follow the guide lines created by these writers, like more works written in the conceptual worlds. Christopher Tolkein=Badass. Animatrix=Badass( although 4 of the 9 stories on ani matrix have writers credits going to the wachowski bros.)

Keenan

Keenan

Columbus, OH
July 2004

DEC 07, 2004 09:23 PM

lostarchitect said:
so, what's it like to be on crack?




Dont get me wrong, the LOTR movies are great, but if I had to see Sean Astin cry one more fucking time I was gonna puke.

[Edited on Dec 07, 2004 by Keenan]

ccfoo

ccfoo

I'm lost
May 2004

DEC 07, 2004 09:48 PM

OK, you know how Elrond in LOTR was played by Hugo Weaving, who also starred as Agent Smith in the Matrix movies?

Well, when I saw The Fellowship of the Ring and they were having that council meeting to talk about what to do with the ring, and I realized he was Agent Smith, I said out loud "What good is a ring, Mr. Baggins. if you have no fingers..."

That was one of those "you had to be there moments"...we were all cracking up...

I can't believe SNL never picked up on that.

FunkTion

funktion

I'm lost
June 2003

DEC 09, 2004 05:20 AM

so can we see the extra 30 mins now?

Cheshire

Cheshire

HOPEFUL

New York, NY

DEC 14, 2004 10:29 AM


Props to this woman.. it is not an easy feat to make a neanu film so fucking popular... I think I may have enjoyed those movies more had he not starred in them... and the eyebrow guy...you know...that guy... "Was it for LOVE MR. Andersdon??!!!"


fucking crazy ass eyebrows.... they ruined it.

BurialRabbits

BurialRabbits

Portland, OR
January 2004

DEC 24, 2004 12:17 AM

James Cameron's wedding was accessible only by helicopter. I'm sure whoever sues him won't dent his bank account or his shitty films. Hollyood goes on.

Cigarette

Cigarette

Cleveland, OH
April 2004

DEC 24, 2004 09:00 AM

BurialRabbits said:
James Cameron's wedding was accessible only by helicopter. I'm sure whoever sues him won't dent his bank account or his shitty films. Hollyood goes on.



Shitty films like the Abyss?!

BurialRabbits

BurialRabbits

Portland, OR
January 2004

DEC 30, 2004 11:27 PM

No, shitty films like Terminator.

AceTracer

acetracer

Hollywood, FL
January 2004

DEC 30, 2004 11:43 PM

Except, The Matrix stole from about a dozen other movies as well. So does just about any good modern sci-fi movie.

AceTracer

acetracer

Hollywood, FL
January 2004

DEC 30, 2004 11:52 PM

Lain said:
So does this meen I can sue LOTR for copyright infringement on behalf of doodlings of dragons and fatasy lands depicting goblins, trolls and boring ass tree shit?

I couldnt resist.


Posts like these are the reason why I love Lain and his complete lack of common sense.

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