Summary
The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Paramount Pictures Corporation in a copyright and contract dispute concerning the film Top Gun: Maverick and the 1983 article “Top Guns.” The court held that the film did not share substantial similarity in protectable expression with the article and that the plaintiffs failed to identify an original and substantially similar selection and arrangement of elements. The court also upheld the district court’s evidentiary rulings concerning the parties’ experts and its rejection of the plaintiffs’ breach-of-contract claim.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Top Gun: Maverick is substantially similar to protectable expression in Top Guns so as to support a copyright-infringement claim.
- Whether the district court abused its discretion by excluding the Yonays' literary expert and considering Paramount's expert regarding factual and protectable elements.
- Whether Paramount breached the 1983 agreement by failing to credit Ehud Yonay in Maverick.
Holdings
- The Yonays failed to establish substantial similarity in protectable expression between Top Guns and Maverick; the shared similarities concerned unprotected facts, ideas, concepts, general traits, or stock elements, and the works did not share an original and substantially similar selection and arrangement.
- The district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the Yonays' literary expert, Henry Bean, whose methodology failed to reliably filter unprotectable elements, or by allowing Paramount's expert, Andrew Craig, whose testimony could assist in identifying factual elements.
- Paramount did not breach the 1983 agreement because the credit provision imposed two conjunctive conditions: the film had to be produced under the agreement and substantially based upon or adapted from the article or an adaptation of it. Maverick was not produced under the agreement because it did not infringe the copyright conveyed by that agreement.
Key quotations
“They must show that what is similar is their original expression.” (4)
“Their claim of substantial similarity fails because what is protected is not similar, and what is similar is not protected.” (11)
“When comparing two works’ selection and arrangement of elements, a court cannot blind itself to the elements, but similarities in those elements alone—no matter their quantity or importance to the work—cannot demonstrate unlawful appropriation.” (19)
“Both conditions in the agreement must be satisfied to trigger the requirement that Paramount credit Yonay.” (26)
Factual background
The Yonays own the copyright in Top Guns, a 1983 nonfiction magazine article by Ehud Yonay about the Navy's Fighter Weapons School, commonly known as Top Gun. Ehud Yonay granted Paramount all rights to the article in exchange for payment and an agreement to receive credit in films produced under the agreement and substantially based on or adapted from the article. After the Yonays terminated the grant in 2020, Paramount released Top Gun: Maverick in 2022 without compensating or crediting them. The Yonays claimed that Maverick copied protected expression from Top Guns and that Paramount breached the credit provision.
Procedural history
The Yonays sued Paramount in the Central District of California, alleging that Top Gun: Maverick infringed the copyright in the article Top Guns and breached a 1983 agreement requiring credit to Ehud Yonay. The district court denied Paramount's motion to dismiss but later granted summary judgment for Paramount, concluding that the works were not substantially similar and that the agreement did not require credit for Maverick. The district court also excluded the Yonays' literary expert, Henry Bean, and allowed Paramount's expert, Andrew Craig. The Ninth Circuit affirmed.