Disney faces another Frozen copyright claim

2015/04/17

Disney is facing another copyright lawsuit against its film Frozen, after a Kuwaiti-based novelist claimed it infringes her work.

Muneefa Abdullah filed the lawsuit at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, on Monday (April 13).

Both Disney and Jennifer Lee, who wrote the screenplay for Frozen, are named as defendants in the complaint.

Abdullah has claimed that the 2013 film is too similar to the plot of her short story The Snow Princess, which features in her compilation New Fairy Tales, were both published in 2007.

She said her work and Frozen both include a princess who has the power to turn things into ice and is then forced into hiding after her power attracts the attention of a witch.

Towards the end of both stories, the princesses return to save a loved one by defeating the witch through the "act of true love", Abdullah said.

“The Snow Princess and Frozen each involve, without limitation, a princess possessing magical ice powers, a sibling in search and rescue of the sibling possessing the magical powers and the idea that only love is capable of defeating evil,” the court document said.

New Fairy Tales was published by Trafford Publishing, which later merged with Random House in 2013.

In the complaint, Abdullah claimed that Lee worked for Random House between 1992 and 2001 and may have had access to New Fairy Tales, despite the fact it would not be published for another six years.

“Lee’s history with Random House, as well as the fact that New Fairy Tales has been available for sale through websites such as Amazon beginning since 2007, gave Lee reasonable opportunities to observe New Fairy Tales and The Snow Princess before she began screen writing Frozen in 2012,” it said.

Abdullah is requesting unspecified damages.

A sequel to Frozen was confirmed by Disney last month. Lee has been assigned a co-director, but no release date has been confirmed.

Earlier this week, WIPR reported that a jury could be set to decide on another copyright claim against Frozen.

Judge Vince Chhabria, at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, said he had a “fairly strong inclination” that a jury should decide if the movie’s teaser trailer infringed the copyright protecting a short film called The Snowman by film maker Kelly Wilson.

Abdullah could not be reached for comment.

Disney did not respond to a request for comment.

(Source: WIPR)