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Disney Facing VFX Firm's Injunction Bid on Three Blockbuster Films (hollywoodreporter.com)
From a report: 'Guardians of the Galaxy,' 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' and 'Beauty and the Beast' are now under the microscope for use of facial capture technology. Upping the stakes over a technology called "performance motion capture," Rearden LLC is going after The Walt Disney Company in a lawsuit filed this week. The plaintiff, a firm incubated by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Perlman, is demanding an injunction prohibiting Disney from distributing Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Beauty and the Beast. The new lawsuit comes a year after Rearden scored a startling injunction against two Chinese firms that purchased allegedly stolen technology known as MOVA, which was being licensed by Digital Domain 3.0. At the time, some legal observers were reading the ruling as notice to Hollywood studios that the facial motion capture technology was out of play. According to Rearden's latest lawsuit in California federal court, Disney didn't listen. "Disney used the stolen MOVA Contour systems and methods, made derivative works, and reproduced, distributed, performed, and displayed at least Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Beauty and the Beast, in knowing or willfully blind violation of Rearden Mova LLC's intellectual property rights."
America deserves what it's going to get. Since when does using a program grant the author of said programs rights on works produced by said program? Sure, maybe Disney is liable for using unlicensed copy(ies), in which case they need to be penalized for doing so - according to the number of unlicensed copies used. However the author does not automatically acquire rights on original works produced with said program. The author of a word processor does not get royalties on the book you wrote, the owner of a paint gun does not get royalties on the building you painted and the inventor of a car does not get a share of the prize you won in the stock car race. Of course in America, everything is different. So I expect American courts to fuck up IP law even further, so that the whole world can be fucked into one party suing the other party forever and nothing ever getting done.
Is it wrong that I feel amused that this is happening to Disney, after all Disney has done to ruin copyright law?
The Hollywood Reporter has done a series of good articles on this... worth searching through what's been reported over the last year, it's amazing. There's a mysteriously killed Chinese billionaire, a Silicon Valley inventor giving away his IP because he thinks it's worthless (and it was worthless until the Oscar won by the guys using it), and a ton of extremely shady lawyers.
Both Perlman and LaSalle have been screwed over here, and they both deserve some of the blame for this. Neither one appears to have understood how to commercialize the technology. They were good friends, but they were not able to separate the ups and downs of friendship from their business relationship.
The claim is Rearden, LLC (Pearlman) invents the MOVA technology, and licenses it to Digital Domain Media Group (DDMG). Pearlman hires LaSalle and become friends, but the MOVA technology doesn't quite catch on in the VFX world. In 2012, DDMG goes bankrupt, and reforms out of bankruptcy in China as Digital Domain Holdings Limited (DDHL).
Pearlman moved MOVA to OnLive Inc., declared it bankrupt, and moved the tech ownership to OL2 (a holding company operated by Lauder). In 2012, one of the Rearden partners (LaSalle) wanted to sell the technology to DDHL claiming Rearden wasn't doing anything with it. Lauder sells MOVA to Lauder Partners, who sells it to LaSalle's company MO2 LLC. DDHL instead arranged for MOVA to be sold from MO2 to SHST (Chinese subsidiary of DDHL), who licensed the technology back to DD3 (American subsidiary of DDHL). LaSalle then goes to work for DD3.
In 2015, DD3 sells the MOVA service to Disney. Disney uses the technology in several live-action movies and makes a crap-ton of money. Pearlman now claims whaa? and reforms as Rearden MOVA, claming that they still own the tech. Pearlman claims that LaSalle violated his contract's inventions agreement by selling intellectual property owned by the parent company.
In 2015, SHST attempts to preemptively sue Rearden that it has the rights to MOVA, and Rearden should stop using the name. Meanwhile they transfer MOVA to Virtue Global Holdings Limited (VGH, subsidiary of DDHL). In court, SHST/VGH fails to provide documentation that they owned the software, are counter-sued, and lose; VGH and SSTL are told to stop claming they own the software. DDHL later comes under investigation by Chinese regulators for creating a ton of shell companies to hide profits from the Chinese government.
Rearden claims that
1) they have the rights to MOVA, not DDHL,
2) that DDHL violated software export laws and shouldn't have been allowed to sell MOVA to SHST in the first place,
3) that DD3 didn't have the rights to license the MOVA technology to Disney, and
4) Disney owes a share of their revenue to Reardon MOVA, the parent of Reardon, LLC.
The only thing clear to me is that all of the parties involved are playing the "Hollywood profit hiding" game of creating shell companies to change who declares the revenues, moving profits among the shell companies, then declaring them bankrupt.