Richard Zambito, a screenwriter, had wrote a screenplay named "Black Rainbow" before Paramount Pictures had released the classic Indiana Jones film "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 1981. Zambito had claimed that Paramount Pictures had stolen the concept of "Raiders the Lost Ark" from Zambito's "Black Rainbow" screenplay. Richard Zambito had decided to then sue Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement because Zambito had felt that some of the scenes from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" were the same as his screenplay "Black Rainbow". Mr. Zambito has said that "Black Rainbow" is about archeologists searching for treasure in Peru, close to the concept of "Raiders of the Lost Ark". The court had disagreed with Zambito and said that the screenplay was "a somber, vulgar script replete with overt sexual scenes, cocaine smuggling and cold-blooded killing." Whereas "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was an action-packed adventure with the classic character, Indiana Jones. These two descriptions could be somewhat alike, but they clearly do not have the exact same concept. The court had decided that Richard Zambito's screenplay was not close enough to the story of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and Zambito had lost the case.
One of the main reasons Zambito had lost the case was that the American copyright law does not protect the concept of "Scènes à Faire". Scènes à Faire is French for "scenes to be made". This means that the court had decided that because the screenplay was only a screenplay rather than a film, they were not able to really understand the full picture of the screenplay, resulting in Richard Zambito to not have enough evidence to support his case. The court had thought that the screenplay had just been another kind of action adventure movie where the characters were both looking for treasure. Because both the movie and screenplay were in the same genre, Mr. Zambito was not able to prove this copyright infringement from the telling that his screenplay was going to look just like scenes from "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
This type of copyright infringement falls under many different sections, but mainly relates to The Canadian Copyright Act: Copyright and Moral Rights in Works. Specifically, the subsection relating to this case would be "(1) (d) in the case of a literary, dramatic or musical work, to make any sound recording, cinematograph film or other contrivance by means of which the work may be mechanically reproduced or performed." This is because the screenplay "Black Rainbow" was in works to become a movie showing that it was still being worked on. Because Paramount Pictures is such a large company, under this copyright infringement section, it would have been an almost impossible task for Richard Zambito to win the case.
From this trial, I believe the outcome was somewhat fair. I believe the outcome was fair because Richard Zambino's screenplay was just like any other action adventure movie and could have been tried against more films in the genre. I also believe it was fair that the court had said that a part of the problem was that the American law system does not support Scènes à Faire, resulting in the court not knowing the exact details of the screenplay such as visual aspects. I believe this case was not too fair because Richard Zambito had tried to sue such a large company that it was almost impossible to win the case. This is because Paramount Pictures would have the top lawyers and be able to easily defend itself. Yet I do believe it was not a smart decision for Zambito to even try and sue such a large company, especially with the lack of evidence he had for his side of the case. This case can show the public that you would need much more evidence than just your screenplay to try and sue such a large company such as Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement.
Here is the trailer for the action adventure film: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Here is the link to the case:
http://www.benedict.com/Visual/Raiders/Raiders.aspx
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