The Walt Disney Company is no stranger to lawsuits.
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We’ve seen cases over salaries, broken promises to passholders, First Amendment violations, and more. Back in 2017, Disney was hit with a suit over using another company’s motion-capture technology to make a film, and now, a jury has made a decision in the case.
A jury has found that Disney should pay nearly $600,000 in damages for using motion-capture technology stolen from another company to make the 2017 live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, according to Reuters.
©Disney
On Thursday, December 21st, an Oakland jury found Disney used Rearden LLC’s MOVA Countour software without permission to render the Beast’s face in the film. Rearden was awarded more than $250,000 in actual damages and recommended Disney pay the company more than $345,000 of the profits from the film.
Disney said the company was “gratified that the jury properly rejected Rearden’s request for $38 million in profits,” according to a spokesperson.
Beauty and the Beast at Hollywood Studios
Rearden was founded by former Apple scientist Steve Perlman, and the company first filed the lawsuit in 2017, claiming that a “rogue” Rearden employee stole the Contour technology and took it to Digital Domain, 3.0 — another company.
The suit argued that Disney infringed Reardon’s copyright in the Contour facial-capture software by having Digital Domain use the tech in Beauty and the Beast.
Walt Disney Studios
All other films that used Contour — Tron: Legacy and The Avengers — did so with Rearden’s permission and because of that, the suit argued, Disney knew better.
Disney has denied the allegations, stating that Rearden didn’t own the copyright when it was working on the movie and that it could not be held liable for copyright infringement based on Digital Domain’s use of the software.
Rearden has brought additional allegations against Marvel over the use of its technology in Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron, but those claims are currently on hold.
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So. A 3rd party company that disney contracted did something shady but “Disney” Is the one named in the lawsuit.
Sound right. 🤦🏼♂️