Disney Files for Dismissal of Lawsuit (…Again)

August 30, 2017 Andy Lagopus News, Official 9
Nick Wilde, Ace Attorney by Quirky-Middle-Child, commissioned by Berserker88
(We’ll need to commission more art of this crossover if this lawsuit drags on any longer…)

In a turn of events that surprises nobody, Disney has filed an official motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Gary Goldman claiming that Disney violated his copyright to create Zootopia.

Now, I’ve said before that ZNN will cover the documents that Goldman brought forward as evidence of his claim, and we still intend to do that.  But we want to do it justice.  We want to present the story that Goldman claims Disney stole, and leave it up to you to judge for yourself if his claims are accurate or not.


That said, we fully agree with Disney’s opening statement in their 31-page motion to dismiss that they filed with the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

“This Court previously dismissed Plaintiff’s initial complaint and concluded that by choosing not to attach the allegedly infringed Looney materials, Plaintiff “actively obfuscated the details of the infringement.”  As the court observed, Plaintiff’s failutre to attach the Looney materials to its initial complaint, or to include any clear summary of them, indicated that doing so “would have been detrimental to its claims.”  Now that the Looney materials have finally emerged with Plaintiff’s amended complaint, the Court’s observations are confirmed: the additional descriptions and context provided by those materials show Looney and Zootopia bear no similarity, let alone substantial similarity required to state a aim for copyright infringement.  Every finding and holding in the Court’s previously existing prior 20-page opinion and order should be conclusively affirmed.”

Hopefully this will finally be the end of this whole debacle.  Knowing how stubborn Goldman seems to be, though, I’m betting we will get at least one or two more articles out of this.  And maybe a few more laughs.


Remember kids: Don’t be a Goldman.  Trying to take credit for other people’s art and reap the benefits for yourself, be it a sketch on Deviantart or a billion-dollar box-office hit, is never okay.  So don’t do it.  Or else you’ll be a Goldman.

For those of you who want to catch up with the entire Goldman Lawsuit Saga, follow this link and you’ll find the articles in order from most recent to oldest.  And for those who want to read Disney’s full dismissal, you can find that here or after the break.

9 Comments

  1. It amazing that people will great lengths to gain riches from others work. Yes, Goldman may have created something similar to what Zootopia is, but in the end, his concept wasn't exactly like the (D) Zootopia we know and love. Plus, his claim of an animal world like Zootopia as his own creation always bothered me, especially since the concept predates Zootopia. Let's hope this ordeal comes to an end.

  2. I don't think Goldman actually knows what he's gotten himself into… I'd almost feel sorry for him for what's about to happen…

    Hoping Disney gets the case dismissed with prejudice this time.

  3. I read a recent article on Law360 about the ongoing Gary Goldman claim.

    https://www.law360.com/articles/958798/disney-seeks-out-of-zootopia-copyright-suit-again

    So first off was Looney even suppose to be a movie, or was it a TV series, I'm confused.

    Second I'd like to bring to light two paragraphs from this article.

    “Looney” is a raunchy live-action movie about an animator named Zeke who develops a show based on people from his childhood and on “warring aspects of his personality," according to Disney's motion. Those characters are depicted as high school-age animals in a zoo run by humans.

    When fame goes to his head, Zeke becomes an egomaniacal tyrant and is kicked off the show, loses his money, fame and starlet girlfriend, and is committed to an insane asylum, where he struggles to regain his sanity and win the love of his childhood friend, Disney recounted.

    Aside from the general premise sounding nothing like the Zootopia we know (there are no humans in zootopia or intelligent animals living in a zoo, this premise so far sounds like it has more in common with Dreamwork's Madagascar then it does our Zootopia) I'd like to point out the live action segment with a real human animator who created this world he's mentioning.

    That part of the article almost immediately reminded me of a cartoon from the early 90's I haven't seen since I was a little kid. It was called Dog City and was produced by the Jim Henson Company, and what's surprising is it was a cartoon that feature a live action segment with a german shepherd animator that creates a cartoon noir crime drama with anthro dogs, and could also be looked at as a buddy cop show, it also had some pretty amusing moments where live action creator and cartoon creation exchange some amusing 4th wall breaking dialog. If you haven't heard it's probably worth looking up and watching some episodes if you have the time.

    But even that part I feel he can't claim as his own original idea since the Jim Henson Company pretty much beat him to it an entire decade earlier (unless he want's to claim that they retroactively stole from him to? lol) But yeah it's not as if one single person can just claim ownership over the entire concept of anthro animals living in a modern day human setting, or said animals in a cop, buddy cop, noir, crime drama. Or even the concept of a creator interacting with there creation.

    • Actually, you're not too far off the mark there. I have something fun planned for this, but for now I'll put it this way- where the animated segment seems more like Madagasgar, the live action stuff is more like Out Of Jimmy's Head. You know, that awful live-action movie and show when Cartoon Network thought live action was a good idea? The one that's so bad that you can find the whole thing in its entirety on Youtube because in order for CN to flag it for copyright violation they have to acknowledge its existence, which they refuse to do? Yeah. Goldman's story was worse than THAT.

    • So wait you can just log in with google account to leave a comment? wish I did that instead of livejournal.

      But now that I recall there was a really bad animated film from the late 80's called Cool World that's very similar to what Gary Describes in that paragraph (I'd recommend watching the Trailer for above mention film for a better idea)

    • Cool World lol, skip the trailer, just watch the Nostalgia Critics review of it, the review is entertaining in its own right, but does the movie justice by explaining all the interference that happened during production, it was a mess.

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