Kasowitz Files Expanded Copyright Lawsuit Against James Cameron and Major Hollywood Studios Alleging Avatar Franchise Built on Stolen Intellectual Property and Seeking $1 Billion in Damages

Kasowitz LLP has filed an amended copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of former 3-D animator and independent creator Eric Ryder against James Cameron, his production company Lightstorm Entertainment, Inc. (“Lightstorm”), The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”), and Disney subsidiaries 20th Century Studios, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, and Disney Streaming Services, LLC.  The amended complaint alleges even more egregious and extensive unauthorized use of Mr. Ryder’s intellectual property in the blockbuster Avatar franchise, including the recently released Avatar: Fire and Ash. 

As alleged in the amended complaint, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Lightstorm spent extensive time and resources working with Mr. Ryder to develop a project based on his science-fiction story titled KRZ, which is set in the distant future and involves anthropomorphic beings, a deep-space oceanic setting, and a sinister, Earth-based corporation engaging in environmentally harmful mining operations on the moon of a gas giant planet.  Lightstorm ultimately canceled the project after telling Mr. Ryder that no one would be interested in an environmentally themed science-fiction film.  Cameron and Lightstorm, along with distributor Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (which would subsequently become the Disney subsidiary 20th Century Studios), later released their own environmentally themed science-fiction film titled Avatar, which Ryder alleged infringed on KRZ.  That dispute led to a lawsuit, and although Lightstorm and Cameron were successful in that lawsuit, they subsequently made multiple attempts to acquire Mr. Ryder’s underlying intellectual property rights in KRZ.  The amended complaint alleges that Lightstorm and Cameron did so because they knew that additional elements taken from KRZ would play an even more significant role in later installments of the Avatar franchise.  When their attempts to acquire the rights lawfully failed, Cameron and Lightstorm proceeded to appropriate Mr. Ryder’s protected expression anyway.

While the original complaint focused only on Avatar: The Way of Water, the amended complaint alleges that the infringement spans the entire Avatar franchise, with defendants allegedly splitting Mr. Ryder’s original work into multiple installments to mask their misappropriation, including verbatim copying, idea theft, and deliberate incorporation of Mr. Ryder’s unique creative elements into Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar: Fire and Ash.  The lawsuit alleges striking similarities between KRZ and the Avatar sequels, including key elements that were not present in the first Avatar movie.  Those elements include the environmentally harmful harvesting of a highly valuable, yellow, glowing, animal-based life-extending substance, underwater harvesting operations with two-man mini-submarines and one-man “walkers,” markedly parallel character arcs, and even verbatim copied dialogue.  The amended complaint includes several side-by-side charts that match Mr. Ryder’s original and protected ideas to the settings, plot devices, imagery, and dialogue in Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar: Fire and Ash, demonstrating the clear, egregious, and intentional nature of the infringement.  

According to the complaint, the expansive scope of the infringement became even more obvious with the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash, as that film makes clear that almost everything about the life-extending substance in the Avatar sequels—from its physical attributes and purpose to how it is obtained and the novel ways it interacts with the environment and characters—is taken directly from Mr. Ryder’s copyrighted work.  The amended complaint alleges that without this central element taken from Mr. Ryder, the sequels’ major plot points—and consequently the Avatar franchise as a whole—would not exist.  

Mr. Ryder seeks compensatory damages in excess of $1 billion, punitive damages, and injunctive relief prohibiting further exploitation of his intellectual property in the Avatar franchise. 

The Kasowitz team representing Mr. Ryder includes partner Daniel A. Saunders and associates Dwayne A. Amos and Emily A. Lowe.