{"id":4646,"date":"2025-03-12T19:17:26","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T19:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/disney-wins-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-over-moana-justia-news-march-12-2025\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T19:17:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T19:17:26","slug":"disney-wins-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-over-moana-justia-news-march-12-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/disney-wins-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-over-moana-justia-news-march-12-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney Wins Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Over &#8220;Moana&#8221; \u2014 Justia News \u2014 March 12, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p>On Monday, March 10, 2025, a jury in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, returned a verdict finding that Disney\u2019s film \u201cMoana\u201d did not infringe on Buck Woodall\u2019s copyrights for his film \u201cBucky.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBucky\u201d is about a teenage surfer who travels back in time to ancient Polynesia. Woodall shared materials for his planned movie with Jenny Marchick, his sister-in-law\u2019s stepsister. Marchick is a film executive who worked for different film companies located on the Disney lot. Woodall provided Marchick with the screenplay, trailer, character designs, production plans, and storyboards for \u201cBucky.\u201d Woodall claimed that Marchick then passed these materials along to Disney since Marchick\u2019s company at the time had a first-look agreement with Disney. He argued that Disney then used these materials to create \u201cMoana\u201d and \u201cMoana 2.\u201d Woodall cited similarities in plots, settings, and other elements to support his copyright infringement claim. Disney countered that it never saw Woodall\u2019s materials and that the works lacked similarity to support the infringement claims.<\/p>\n<p>Woodall\u2019s lawsuit sought $100 million in damages. The court eventually found that Woodall\u2019s claims as to \u201cMoana\u2019s\u201d theatrical release were time-barred. As such, the lawsuit became focused on Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Disney\u2019s home video distribution wing. Jurors in the case, six women and two men, watched \u201cMoana\u201d in its entirety in the courtroom and then considered story outlines for \u201cBucky\u201d dating from 2003 and 2008. The jurors also considered \u201cBucky\u2019s\u201d 2011 script. The jury deliberated for 2 1\/2 hours before returning its decision that the \u201cMoana\u201d creators never had access to Woodall\u2019s materials. With its finding, the jury did not need to decide the questions of significant similarity between the two films.<\/p>\n<p>Woodall filed a separate lawsuit concerning \u201cMoana 2\u201d in January. That lawsuit seeks $10 billion in damages.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Additional Reading:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/moana-lawsuit-trial-disney-04e73ba5fbe788ffabf2b4b8fa32d276\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Disney didn\u2019t copy \u2018Moana\u2019 from a man\u2019s story of a surfer boy, a jury says<\/a>, <em>The Associated Press<\/em> (March 10, 2025)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/litigation\/disney-wins-us-copyright-trial-over-animated-hit-moana-2025-03-10\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Disney wins US copyright trial over animated hit \u2018Moana\u2019<\/a>, Reuters (March 10, 2025)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/moana-2-disney-movie-lawsuit-copyright-infringement-explainer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Moana 2 Lawsuit Explained: Why Disney Is Being Sued Over Its $1.6Bn Franchise<\/a>, <em>ScreenRant<\/em> (January 21, 2025)<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/dockets.justia.com\/docket\/california\/cacdce\/2:2020cv03772\/781119\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Buck G. Woodall v. The Walt Disney Company<\/a><\/em> (Case No. 2:2020cv03772)<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/dockets.justia.com\/docket\/california\/cacdce\/2:2025cv00273\/953790\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Buck G. Woodall v. The Walt Disney Company et al<\/a><\/em> (Case No. 2:2025cv00273)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Photo Credit:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hiroshi-Mori-Stock \/ Shutterstock.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>(function(d, s, id) {\n            var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n            if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n            js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n            js.src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.11&appId=1639788792774312&autoLogAppEvents=1\";\n            fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n        }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Monday, March 10, 2025, a jury in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, returned a verdict finding that Disney\u2019s film \u201cMoana\u201d did not infringe on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[429,2184,892,309,303,450,5050,310,882],"class_list":["post-4646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-copyright","tag-disney","tag-infringement","tag-justia","tag-lawsuit","tag-march","tag-moana","tag-news","tag-wins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}