A Federal Jury Rules That Disney Infringed on Motion-Capture Technology For ‘Beauty and the Beast’
A California jury has found The Walt Disney Company guilty of copyright infringement over motion-capture technology the company used to make its 2017 live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast.
The technology in question, MOVA Contour Reality Capture, was “pilfered” from Steve Perlman’s Rearden company.
A Tangled Web of Licensing
According to Perlman, the technology was stolen by former Rearden employee Greg LaSalle, who used the technology at the VFX house Digital Domain.
Eventually, LaSalle sold a license for MOVA technology to DD3, which used motion capture technology in films such as Guardians of the Galaxy, multiple Avengers films, and Disney’s remake of Beauty and the Beast.
After a complicated legal saga, Judge Jon Tigar ruled that Digital Domain never properly owned the rights to MOVA and that LaSalle had acted fraudulently. That ruling allowed Rearden to sue various studios that used the technology- including Disney.
A Judge Ruled Disney Could Be Liable
Rearden eventually sued Disney in federal court, arguing that the success of the studio’s Beauty and the Beast remake was due in large part to the use of the infringed upon MOVA technology.
Beauty and the Beast was a massive success for Disney at the box office, grossing $1.27 billion. If a jury found that even 10% of the film’s profits were due to the use of MOVA, Rearden would have been looking at a $100 million payout.
For their part, Disney argued that they were unaware that Digital Domain was infringing on Rearden’s intellectual property and that MOVA was just one piece of a larger VFX puzzle.
Rearden, meanwhile, argued that it had worked directly with Disney on other films that used MOVA, including Tron: Legacy and The Avengers, and thus the company should have known that Digital Domain did not own the rights to the technology.
The Jury Is In
On Thursday, a jury ruled that Disney should pay nearly $600,000 in copyright damages for using the technology on Beauty and the Beast.
The jury’s ruling called for Rearden to be awarded more than $250,000 in actual damages and recommended that Disney pay Rearden more than $345,000 of its profits from the film.
While the Beauty and the Beast trial has now ended, it will not be the last legal battle between Disney and Rearden.
The company is also suing Disney over using MOVA in Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Those claims were put on hold during the Beauty and the Beast trial.
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