William Roger Dean has lost his copyright-infringement suit against director James Cameron, Deadline reported. Dean filed claims against Cameron for using the ideas to make the highest-grossing film of all time, "Avatar," fro his artworks. He claimed that 14 of his fantasy paintings were the basis of the film's "Pandora," the fictional alien planet that is the main venue of the entire film.
The visual artist has since demanded US$50 million for damages from Cameron, his production company Lightstorm Entertainment, as well as 20th Century Fox. In his complaint, he said, "The similarities of each such work are substantial, continuing, and direct so as to rule out any accidental copying or similarity in scenes common to the genre."
However, US District Judge Jesse M. Furman trashed the copyright infringement suit on Wednesday on the grounds that it was "misguided."
James Cameron has since dismissed the accusations and claimed that Dean cannot produce any substantial evidence that his 14 artworks became the basis of the floating mountains and other fantasies in the movie. Furman agreed and granted the demand of the defendant. Deadline obtained the complaint and published it on its website, which indicated the decision of the New York judge.
In the past eleven months, there had been others who sued Cameron for stealing ideas from their works. 3News New Zealand said that writer Eric Ryder's claim was thrown in October. In his complaint, Ryder claimed that Cameron borrowed ideas from his short story "K.R.Z. 2068,' whic he said was about an "environmentally-themed 3D epic about a corporation's colonisation and plundering of a distant moon's lush and wondrous natural setting." The Hollywood Reporter said plaintiff Gerald Morawski declared in his separate complaint that he pitched Cameron "Guardians of Eden," an environment-themed concept that he said was used as basis for the director's film, which was dismissed because he cannot sufficiently demonstrate that he suffered damages as a result of "misappropriation of his ideas."
James Cameron still owns "Avatar."
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