Wachowski Brothers, tried for copyright infringement and racketeering

[theearthisround]

http://www.slccglobelink.com/news/2004/10/28/Entertainment/mother.Of.The.Matrix.Victorious-785067.shtml

"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."

"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."

I did a little looking around and found some more info on this case, check it out:

http://www.daghettotymz.com/matrix/matrix.html

[DireStrike]

1. There's 30 minutes of missing Matrix footage???

w;egohnlei56nwkl3,546j nbyknb w4yl4by45ybkw435yb ql43wy6b ql5ybkrezlcvnbalekrjnga!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gah!

[smiley_glad_hands]

2. No wonder the sequels sucked. eom

[tridim]

3. A friend and I also came up with the same idea in 1989

Seriously.. Both of us were interested in the new-ish field of virtual reality so we sat down one night and sketched out a rough screenplay that was almost exactly the same story in The Matrix. When I saw the Matrix, the first thing I did afterward was to call my friend and tell him jokingly how they "stole our idea". It's an obvious direction to take the story, I'm sure thousands of people had the same idea.

IMO, the Wachowski's should be sued for making crappy movies. ;)

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Similar yet superior to The Matrix, and without the crappy sequels:

Dark City

[Xipe Totec]

10. Love that film!

One of those you can watch over and over and still enjoy.

[Zynx]

5. As an aspiring screenwriter, this does and doesn't surprise me

Doesn't surprise me because the differences between Matrix and Reloaded and Revolutions as far as story, characterization, structure, etc are glaring, and that there are so many scripts floating around in Hollywood that this dishonest shit isn't exactly unheard of.

What *does* surprise me is that they didn't buy or option the rights once it became clear that they wanted to do the movie. WGA minimum is cheap, cheap, cheap by the standards of a blockbuster movie, and even the very best writers, such as Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Carribean) command low seven figures at most.

The lawsuit payout from this could easily be tens of millions of dollars. In short, this was an idiotic move by WB, Silver and the Wachowskis.

[charlie]

6. There were no convictions

And the article is some crappy reporting. All that's happened is that a court "received and acknowledged" her allegations. She'll get her case heard. The part about her getting mondo payoffs is just speculation.

[Zynx]

8. Well, if they are found guilty, it's certainly not speculation on damages

The damages for even minor theft of intellectual property in the Hollywood system run into the millions whenver it gets dragged to court and actually won.

The payout from something on the scale of the Matrix is going to be huge.

Dark City should also sue the Wachowskis and Silver, for that matter, but everyone already knows about that.

If the Wachowskis, as writers, did indeed place a newspaper ad for material, then they are either con artists or some of the biggest idiots I ever heard of.

[charlie]

9. It's a big if

She has to prove her claims. One of them is that she first became aware of the theft when she saw the original 2hr 40min version of the film that was subsequently cut down to protect Warner's from her charges. She says she currently on the hunt for a copy. That's quite a story, the national release was 20 minutes longer, scenes were cut, and no one seems to have noticed but her.

In any case, the article says she will and will soon receive damages for a roster of movies (including the Terminator, which has already been successfully sued by Harlan Ellison for being derived from one of his stories). That's speculation paraded as fact.

[Killarney]

7. interesting that she mentions the media won't touch it

because AOL/Time Warner owns 95% of the media.

I don't think her stat is correct, but it's true that that's probably the reason the story is suppressed.

[starroute]

11. Most of these ideas are ripped off from written SF of the 40s/50s

As sources for The Matrix see Henry Kuttner's "Don't Look Now" (Startling, March 1948) and "The Yellow Pill" by Rog Phillips (Astounding, October 1958). (I think I've got the Kuttner title right -- I don't have a copy to check for sure.) Plus generous side helpings of van Vogt and Phil Dick.

Star Wars ought to have been paying royalties for years to the estate of E.E. "Doc" Smith and to Jack Williamson (who invented not only the theme of smashing evil galactic empires but also the idea of doing so in company with a hideously cute alien companion back -- and this was back in 1938.)

Even Heinlein got his Martian flatcats ripped off by Star Trek's tribbles -- and as far as I know, never got a penny for the privilege.

It's an open secret that movie producers see written sf as something like Grimm's Tales -- a collection of traditional themes that can be borrowed at will without acknowledgment or compensation. And with rare exceptions, sf writers have just suffered in silence.

[theearthisround]

12. Check out these incredible pictures from her case

http://www.daghettotymz.com/matrix/matrixgallery11.html
http://www.daghettotymz.com/matrix/matrixgallery12.html